



For Immediate Release

August 20, 2013 Contact: Samantha Hooper

617.939.0800

Democratic Congressional Candidates Sign People's Pledge Marks the first time five candidates have signed the historic agreement



The five Democratic candidates for Congress in the 5th Congressional District today jointly announced the signing of an agreement to prevent outside, unregulated groups from spending unlimited, undisclosed sums to influence this election. This agreement is modeled after the historic "People's Pledge" signed by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown during 2012 that is widely credited with reducing the impact of these groups that ran rampant across most of the rest of the country. Democrats William Brownsberger, Katherine Clark, Peter Koutoujian, Carl Sciortino and Karen Spilka, signed on to the pledge that was negotiated by their campaigns with the assistance of Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair John Walsh. Walsh released the following statement regarding this agreement:



“We applaud each of these candidates for this historic achievement and their ability to come together as Democrats. By signing the People’s Pledge, these candidates are reinforcing to voters that Democrats stand for grassroots, issues-based politics and oppose the outsized influence of big money and negative campaigns. In addition, each candidate will have more control over their individual message and the direction they choose to take their campaign. The people of the 5th Congressional District deserve to hear from the candidates themselves and not be influenced by outside undisclosed negative ads that will alienate voters.”



In summary the pledge states:

Third party organizations that endorse any of the candidates (or are directly affiliated with or a subsidiary of an organization that has endorsed a candidate) are prohibited from advertising expenditures in support of or in opposition to any of the candidates.



If a violation occurs, the candidate endorsed by the third-party organization agrees to donate an amount equal to 50% of the expenditure to the One Fund Boston within 3 days. In the event that a third party organization who has not endorsed any candidate (or is not directly affiliated with an organization that has endorsed) makes an advertising expenditure in favor of or in opposition to a candidate, the other candidates will place on their websites a message for 24 hours stating that a violation of the people's pledge has occurred as well as a short 200 word message from the candidate who was referenced in the ad. For the purposes of this agreement, prohibited expenditures will include television, cable, radio, satellite and online advertising.

View the entire People’s Pledge here



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Democrats William Brownsberger, Katherine Clark, Peter Koutoujian, Carl Sciortino and Karen Spilka, signed on to the pledge that was negotiated by their campaigns with the assistance of Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair John Walsh. Walsh released the following statement regarding this agreement:“We applaud each of these candidates for this historic achievement and their ability to come together as Democrats. By signing the People’s Pledge, these candidates are reinforcing to voters that Democrats stand for grassroots, issues-based politics and oppose the outsized influence of big money and negative campaigns. In addition, each candidate will have more control over their individual message and the direction they choose to take their campaign. The people of the 5th Congressional District deserve to hear from the candidates themselves and not be influenced by outside undisclosed negative ads that will alienate voters.”







