While three candidates in Louisiana trying to force their way into a televised U.S. Senate race debate weren’t successful, their court hearing this week underscored the troubles for lesser-known contenders seeking the attention needed to win statewide races, The Associated Press reports.
How can a candidate meet polling criteria when pollsters don’t include them in their list? Should candidate forums give everyone an opportunity to speak, even if they have little money to run campaigns? How do you sift through a race with 24 people competing?
Judge Tim Kelley refused on Thursday to stop Louisiana Public Broadcasting and the Council for A Better Louisiana’s Oct. 18 debate or force them to add more candidates to the stage besides the five who met established criteria.
The state district judge denied the injunction request from Senate candidates Troy Hebert, Beryl Billiot and Charles Marsala, who sought to stop the televised debate after they were left out because they didn’t meet the criteria required for participation.
Kelley’s decision came after a two-day hearing that explored the influence of money in politics, the expectations for a successful campaign and the difficulties in drawing attention to less conventional candidacies.
Hebert, later joined by Billiot and Marsala, challenged the LPB and CABL debate criteria as unfair, particularly the 5% polling and $1 million fundraising requirements.
All three candidates say the $1 million threshold favored the rich and the well-established politicians, denying less traditional candidates a path to get out their message and to add fresh perspective to the race.
Twenty four people are seeking the U.S. Senate seat. CABL President and CEO Barry Erwin and LPB President and CEO Beth Courtney say a debate with that many candidates wouldn’t be useful.
“What we are trying to do is to give candidates enough time for meaningful discourse,” Erwin says. “With 24, that would be totally impossible.”
Billiot and Marsala say they’ve been campaigning through social media, posting videos and policy platforms on YouTube and Facebook. They say they could campaign more cheaply and didn’t need the hefty fundraising dollars to get support—if they could participate in the campaign debates and forums hosted by different groups around the state.
