Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen continues to challenge potential Republican candidate Scott Brown to sign the same pledge he did during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts.
During an appearance in Manchester this morning, Shaheen says she has not heard from Brown on whether he will agree to the so-called people’s pledge, which is meant to limit third-party spending on negative attack ads.
“He should accept it, whether it’s today, tomorrow, or the next day. I think it’s important to the people of New Hampshire. The fact is we don’t want the Koch brothers coming in here, spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to buy the Senate seat.”
The pact would require any candidate who benefits from a third-party attack ad to contribute 50 percent of the cost to a charity of the opponent’s choosing.
Shaheen says it's the right thing to do.
“As we saw in Massachusetts, when they took this pledge, it limited the outside money, it limited the negative attack ads. I think people are tired of those negative attacks and I certainly hope he will agree to his own pledge.”
On Monday, Brown wouldn’t commit to the pledge, saying he’s not yet an official candidate.
He called Shaheen’s proposal "hypocritical," saying her supporters have already spent three-quarters of a million dollars on ads against him.
Shaheen called that a red herring.
“When they agreed to the pledge in Massachusetts, $3 million had already been spent in that race.”
GOP and conservative third-party groups have committed to $1.5 million in ads attacking Shaheen.