On July 8, Dan La Botz filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., over a complete absence of objective criteria in several televised debates last year between candidates for U.S. Senate in Ohio. La Botz was the Socialist Party nominee in 2010 for U.S. Senate. The Ohio News Organization, comporsed of the largest eight newspapers in the state, sponsored televised U.S. Senate debates, and failed to set out any objective criteria on whom to include. Instead, the organization merely invited the Democratic and Republican nominees, and did not even communicate with the other two candidates listed on the ballot.

Although federal regulations permit broadcasters to set severe standard on whom to invite, they are very clear that there must be such standards. After the debates were over, the Ohio News Organization said it had invited the two major party nominees based on their party affiliation and the fact that they were the “obvious frontrunners.” La Botz then complained to the Federal Election Commission, which did not act on his complaint and dismissed it on May 19, 2011. Therefore, La Botz is now suing the FEC to force it to enforce the law. When there are no objective standards, the debate sponsors are in violation of federal election law, which bans corporate contributions to candidates for federal office.