Brown and Warren Are Making the “People’s Pledge” Work

Some weeks ago I wrote a blog praising the Senatorial campaigns of Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren for pledging to forgo third party Super PAC ads.

“This is a great victory for the people of Massachusetts and a bold statement that puts super PACs and other third parties on notice that their interference in this race will not be tolerated,’’ Brown said in a statement.

Brown has proved himself to be a man of his word, not once, but twice in recent weeks.

The Scott Brown campaign will write a check for $34,545 to charity, his second in a matter of weeks, after the Elizabeth Warren campaign protested that ads from a petroleum lobbying group supporting Brown violate the “People’s Pledge” that both candidates agreed to in February.

The ads by the American Petroleum Institute were distributed in six states, including Massachusetts. The Massachusetts ads urged voters to contact Brown to urge him to vote against higher taxes on the oil industry. (Brown has already received over $200,000 in contributions from Big Oil.)

A statement issued by Mindy Myers, Warren’s campaign manager, said the campaign considers the ads a violation of the “People’s Pledge,” an agreement by both campaigns designed to limit third-party advertising during the race.

“It has come to our attention that the American Petroleum Institute has been running radio and print ads to support Senator Scott Brown’s position on tax breaks for big oil companies,” Myers wrote “Given Senator Brown’s past vote in support of these tax breaks, and the fact that these ads are funded by big oil and clearly support Brown’s position on this issue, this is a violation of the People’s Pledge.”

Myers also said “If Scott Brown allows these ads to continue, it could open the exact kind of loopholes for third parties that Elizabeth Warren was concerned about from the beginning. We urge Senator Brown to honor the pledge and demand that these ads be taken down.”

Brown spokesman Colin Reed issued a response: “While issue ads are not covered under the terms of the People’s Pledge, they do represent a loophole that needs to be closed,” he said.

“Scott Brown is committed to honoring this historic agreement and for that reason his campaign will donate to charity the sums called for in the pledge as a result of the American Petroleum Institute’s ad campaign,” he said. “The fact that we have now expanded the pledge to cover issue ads is a positive and welcome development.” 

Both campaigns agreed to follow the pledge in an attempt to limit negative advertising and attacks from third parties in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. That 2010 ruling, based on a 5-4 court decision, struck down campaign finance laws that limited how much corporations, nonprofits and unions could spend on political campaigns.

Under terms of the pledge, Brown and Warren each agreed to make a donation to the charity of the other candidate’s choosing equal to half the cost any political advertising purchased by third-party supporters.

A few weeks ago Brown made a donation of $1,000 to a charity of Warren’s choosing, the Autism Consortium, in response to some ads by the Coalition of Americans for Political Equality. 

Let’s hope that more politicians will follow the example of Brown and Warren and pledge not to receive third party Super PAC ads. How about Congressional candidates Richard Tisei and John Tierney leading the way?