On October 31, 2007, Ralph Nader filed a federal lawsuit against Terry McAuliffe, former chair of the Democratic National committee, for the party’s actions to keep him off the ballot in 2004. The case, filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia (McAuliffe lives in Virginia), has been assigned to Judge James Cacheris, who has been a judge for 36 years. He served 10 years as a state court judge, and then was appointed to the federal bench in 1981.