An idea whose time has come (maybe)
Wednesday, Nov 18, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* An interesting idea…
In the Massachusetts 2012 Senate race, Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown proved that when candidates are serious about curbing the influence of super PACs on their race, they can work together to make it happen.
In an agreement known as the People’s Pledge, Warren and Brown made a mutual promise to reject the support of super PACs. They pledged that if a super PAC spent money to support either of their campaigns, whoever benefited from the expenditure would offset it by forfeiting money from their own campaign coffers. The idea was new, bold, and bilateral, and it changed the calculus of spending in the race.
Because super PACs saw that making expenditures to support Warren or Brown would ultimately hurt them, it no longer made sense for super PACs to spend money in the race. As a result, the People’s Pledge successfully eliminated virtually all super PAC spending, and it helped to cut the volume of negative advertising – which super PAC money almost exclusively buys – in half. In short, with the mere stroke of a pen, Warren and Brown gave the people of Massachusetts a substantially more accountable race.
* Press release…
New television advertisements airing this weekend in Illinois are targeting both frontrunners in the Illinois Senate race by challenging Mark Kirk (R) and Tammy Duckworth (D) to refuse the flood of unaccountable election spending by outside groups. The ads, which will air online during the week and on local CBS around the Chicago Bears game on Sunday, are part of a campaign run by CounterPAC, a group backed by tech entrepreneurs advocating for fair elections by curbing the influence of outside spending.
The new video ads follow print ads in October from CounterPAC in the Chicago Sun-Times and the State Journal-Register that encouraged the Illinois’ Senate candidates to “Take the Pledge” and mutually agree to reject expenditures by outside groups during the 2016 campaign. Recent reports indicate that spending from outside groups in the Illinois’ Senate race has already eclipsed $1.7 million, with more than $1 million favoring the Democratic side.
The ads highlight the candidates’ own criticism of the influence of outside spending and challenge them to do something about it by taking the CounterPAC pledge to reject outside money. The ad targeting Kirk plays on Kirk’s comments that an unknown group could run ads saying he strangles kittens – then offers a short glimpse of a Mark Kirk: Kitten Killer style ad. The ad targeting Duckworth highlights the inconsistency of Duckworth’s stated commitment to stemming the tide of money in politics as she rides a wave of outside spending in her own campaign for Senate.
“Both Mark Kirk and Tammy Duckworth have been outspoken about the trouble with elections that are dominated by super PACs – so this is a chance for each of them to put their money where their mouth is,” said CounterPAC Executive Director Jay Costa. “A simple pledge could erase outside money – giving voters a race free of unlimited outside spending and offering a model of accountability for other races across the country.”
CounterPAC is prepared to act as the arbiter and enforcer of a “no outside spending” pledge after candidates have mutually agreed to the terms, which include rejecting expenditures from outside sources and countering rejected expenditures by donating 50 percent of the cost of the rejected expenditure to a charity of the opposing candidate’s choice. In the 2012 Massachusetts Senate race, Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown agreed to a similar pledge. That agreement set the precedent for the CounterPAC pledge and was widely regarded as successfully limiting outside spending.
A recent poll conducted by Bloomberg shows that 87% of Americans think the current campaign finance system should be reformed to curb the influence of wealthy donors, with 78% saying specifically that they disapprove of the unlimited corporate spending unleashed by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.
Your thoughts?
…Adding… From a good pal…
I worked on Brown’s campaign. It ended up being a bad deal for Brown, which is why he didn’t do it in 2014.
The problem was not so much with the outside spending that it did ban, as the outside spending it did not. Specifically, only TV, radio and print ads were banned. Outside groups could, and did, spend money on direct mail, robocalls and, most crucially, get out the vote drives.
Get out the vote drives are a traditional strength on the Democratic side, particularly unions, and a traditional weakness for Republicans. Outspending them on the air was the Republican counter. The People’s Pledge, combined with Warren’s extremely robust fundraising, made that impossible.
Point taken.
