U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina tossed out Ralph Nader’s lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee, Sen. John Kerry, and the Service Employees International Union in which Nader claimed they conspired to keep Nader off the ballot in several states in 2004, Capitol Media Services reports. Nader sought financial damages incurred for court costs, as well as a judicial block on any similar efforts by the Democrats to try to block him again this year. Urbina said Nader had no legal right to complain “and added that future violations are purely speculative.”
Urbina also “chided Nader for trying blame others for his 2004 problems,” saying Nader “chose to blame a conspiracy for the 2004 result rather than attribute his showing to ‘public disenchantment with independent candidates following the closely divided 2000 presidential election or an unpopular platform or any one of the array of reasons that voters chose one candidate over another.'”