Hawaii Candidates Need to Sign the ‘People’s Pledge’

With the primary elections behind us, forums and sign waving for candidates for the November elections are already underway.

And many of us in the public are cringing at the expectation of being inundated by advertising for or against candidates, sponsored not by the candidates but by funds provided to Super PACs from secret donors operating “independently” of the candidates. (Remember all the negative ads in the 2010 Honolulu mayor’s race?)

Perhaps there is. In 2012, Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown, running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, pioneered what has come to be called “The People’s Pledge.” They agreed to make charitable donations from their campaign funds equal to half of any money spent for advertising on their behalf by “independent” outside groups. Their donation would be made to a charity chosen by the opposing candidate.

It worked! This agreement led to Super PACs closing their checkbooks and departing— outside funding decreased by 93 percent. The groups were simply unwilling to invest in ads they knew would be offset by major withdrawals from their preferred candidates’ treasuries. Outside groups did not purchase a single television ad in Massachusetts that year!

With the big money groups out of the picture, Brown and Warren fueled their campaigns with modest gifts from individual donors and concentrated their attention on issues important to them and to Massachusetts voters.

Let’s replicate that outcome in Hawaii this year. Nationally, Common Cause and Public Citizen are encouraging other states to take the pledge to their candidates in competitive races (see peoplespledge2014.org), and members of the Hawaii chapters have agreed to do so.

Over the next week, we will continue to contact the major candidates in the races for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House to ask that they agree to work with their opponents to tailor the pledge to their own specifications. We will be publicizing candidates’ responses.

Wouldn’t it be better for us to be able to listen to the candidates themselves rather than to ads that are designed to confuse us? Wouldn’t it be better for the candidates to be able to tailor their own campaigns, rather than hoping that outside groups would represent them appropriately?

It is in everyone’s interest for candidates to sign these pledges. If implemented, they will very directly reduce the scourge of big money’s influence on politics as well as help return elections to a conversation between candidates and voters.