* Democratic Congresswoman Cheri Bustos met with the Quad-City Times editorial board and was asked about her 2012 promise to give up 10 percent of her congressional salary. She didn’t come off very well…

Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., said Wednesday that she made a mistake two years ago by saying she’d cut her own pay if elected, but added that she is trustworthy and, in the end, what’s really important is getting results. […]

“It was a vigorous back and forth, and I said something I shouldn’t have said,” Bustos said. “You don’t make decisions like that without talking to your husband about it or anything else.”

Bustos said she did not intend to follow through on the matter, because “my pledge to the residents and the citizens of this district” was that she’d support legislation to cut lawmaker pay. “I did support that legislation,” she said. […]

“I work very hard. My word is good, and I have taken very, very seriously my reputation, my family’s reputation. I made a mistake. I’m sitting her telling you I made a mistake. I should not have said that,” Bustos said.

* Schilling campaign response…

Jon Schweppe, communications director at Bobby Schilling for Congress, said that Bustos should follow through on her promise, not apologize for getting caught breaking it.

“Congresswoman Bustos is wrong,” Schweppe said. “Her word isn’t good. She didn’t make a mistake—she made a promise. She made a promise and she broke it. If she wants to make good, she should give back the money. Period.

“And to say her word is good after everything she has ‘misspoken’ about—the shutdown pay, the investment in a Chinese company that ships American jobs overseas, the veterans cuts, the slanderous statements about Bobby Schilling’s employer—is almost laughable but mostly just sad at this point.”

* The Schilling campaign also has a new TV ad which addresses the matter…

* Script…

Narrator: “Congresswoman Cheri Bustos refuses to be accountable for her promises and her votes. Bustos promised she’d cut her own pay by 10 percent, now she claims she ‘misspoke.’

Bustos cast a vote on House Joint Resolution 59 on December 12, 2013, a vote to cut veterans benefits by six billion.

After public outcry, Bustos voted to restore the cuts… will she now claim she ‘mis-voted?’ The facts don’t lie.”