‘People’s Pledge’ turns New Hampshire Senate race upside down
It isn’t usually the Republican candidate calling for restrictions on campaign spending.
But New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte is doing just that — taking a page out of Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren’s 2012 Senate race playbook.
The first-term Republican is up for re-election against the state’s popular two-term Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan, in what’s expected to be among the most, if not the most, competitive 2016 Senate battles.
Last week, Ayotte proposed that both candidates sign the “People’s Pledge,’’ which would work to eliminate spending by third-party groups, such as super PACs. The pledge would force campaigns to pay a penalty to charity if any outside group runs ads on their behalf.
The similar pledge signed by Brown and Warren reduced outside spending to 93 percent less than the other tightly contested 2012 Senate races.
“I’m asking you to agree to a race between the two of us by pledging to keep third party special interest spending out of this race and keep the focus on New Hampshire priorities,’’ Ayotte wrote in a letter to Hassan.
Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan is challenging Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte for her seat in Washington, D.C.
But the Hassan campaign says Ayotte’s proposal is a political ploy. Having attempted to paint the senator as aligned with the GOP megadonor Koch brothers, the Democrat’s team says Ayotte is using the pledge to safeguard against that line of attack and solidify a fundraising advantage.
“This proposal seems awfully out of character coming from a Senator with a record and views like Kelly Ayotte’s,’’ wrote Hassan’s campaign manager, Marc Goldberg, who referred to Ayotte’s support of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
According to federal filings, Ayotte’s campaign has also raised roughly four times as much money as Hassan, who announced in October she would run for Senate, and also holds a 4-1 cash-on-hand advantage.
Hassan ultimately responded by signing a “People’s Pledge’’ and sending it back to Ayotte, except it was a revised (or “strengthened,’’ as Hassan’s team put it) version that included a $15 million campaign spending cap.
Brown and Warren’s 2012 agreement included no such spending cap. In fact, the two campaigns combined to break Massachusetts records for fundraising and spending.
Hassan’s campaign said New Hampshire has a tradition of capping campaign spending, pointing to voluntary state laws that candidates have the choice to opt in to.
“Granite Staters know that it’s not just the outside spending, but the amount of spending on campaigns that should be reined in,’’ Hassan wrote back to Ayotte.
In a Sunday op-ed in the New Hampshire Union Leader, Ayotte said the real issue is undisclosed third-party spending.
“Gov. Hassan’s new proposal is politician speak for ‘I do not want to sign the People’s Pledge,’’’ she wrote. “Her decision to totally change the intent of the People’s Pledge is an attempt to kill it.’’
Hassan’s campaign says that the pledge signed by Brown and Warren in 2012 came from a week of negotiations between the two camps, rather than a one-sided proposal. And in the letter sent back to the Ayotte campaign, Hassan says her campaign would be open to further negotiating the pledge.
But in an open letter Tuesday, Ayotte showed no signs of bending, reiterating her original proposal.
“I’m standing up and taking responsibility for the ads being run on my behalf,’’ Ayotte wrote. “If Governor Hassan will do the same and sign the People’s Pledge today, we can solve this problem together.’’
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