An agreement to eschew “dark money” campaign funding is in place for three Somerville state representative races, the Somerville Democratic City Committee said in a Monday press release.
The committee adopted a resolution this year for Democratic candidates running to represent Somerville to take a “people’s pledge” as senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey have done in past election seasons. The agreements are meant to counteract the Supreme Court decision made in 2010 known as Citizens United, which okayed unlimited spending on elections by corporations and other groups, and in them pledged candidates call on supporters not to make independent expenditures on their behalf. They vow to donate to charity a penalty of half of the amount of any independent expenditure, said Jack Perenick, chair of the Somerville Democratic Party.
That creates “a strong and meaningful disincentive against any outside spending” by the dark-money-wielding groups known as super political action committees, Perenick said.
“These agreements empower voters, candidates, parties, unions and traditional PACs following the strict limits set by Massachusetts campaign finance law,” which prohibits corporate donations, individual contributions larger than $500 and anonymous funding, Perenick said. “They ensure that voters in Somerville, Medford and Cambridge will decide the result of elections free from the interference of unlimited dark money spending from super PACs.”
Participating House of Representative candidates are in the 34th Middlesex (Paul Ruseau, Chris Oates and Will Mbah); 27th Middlesex (Ben Ewen-Campen and Olivia Gilligan-Corsetti); and 26th Middlesex (Neil Miller and Mike Connolly), according to the committee press release. It congratulates them for “taking this step to give voters confidence that the candidates chosen in our primaries reflect our community’s voice and are not beholden to unlimited dark money groups and donors.”
“As a first-time candidate, it’s been depressing to see how much money matters, even in a local race. I’m glad that we can now focus more on connecting with voters about the issues that we care about and not have to worry about big donors coming in without campaign approval to muddy the waters,” said Oates, running in the 34th Middlesex.
Ruseau, in another quote provided by the committee, said that he respect “that the voters decide – and whatever they choose, this district wins when the race is fought on our issues, not outside money.”
The party tried to negotiate the same agreement for the 2nd Middlesex race for the Senate, Perenick said. It got buy-in from only two candidates – Matthew McLaughlin and Christine Barber.
The 2nd Middlesex includes the cities of Somerville and Medford, and parts of Cambridge and Winchester. The other candidates for the district are Burhan Azeem, Tom Hopcroft, Neheet Trivedi and Erika Uyterhoeven.
“These agreements can only function where all candidates agree to prevent dark money spending in a race by unanimous participation. We are deeply grateful to who were willing to participate, and regret that a people’s pledge will not be in effect for this race,” Perenick said.
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