{"id":5504,"date":"2015-07-17T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=5504"},"modified":"2015-07-17T00:09:09","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T04:09:09","slug":"edwards-refuses-to-join-van-hollen-in-rejecting-campaign-spending-by-outside-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=5504","title":{"rendered":"Edwards Refuses to Join Van Hollen in Rejecting Campaign Spending by Outside Groups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Both Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards support rolling back the tidal wave of independent expenditures unleashed by the Supreme Court&#8217;s &#8220;disastrous <em>Citizens United<\/em> decision,&#8221; as <a href=\"https:\/\/donnaedwardsforsenate.com\/issue\/campaign-finance-reform\/\">Edwards put it<\/a>. Now, Van Hollen challenged Edwards to agree with him to practice what they preach and pledge to reject spending by outside groups.<\/p>\n<p>But\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/donnaedwardsforsenate.com\/issue\/campaign-finance-reform\/\">despite stating that<\/a> &#8220;Marylanders deserve a Senator who will lead with bold solutions in the fight for campaign finance reform,&#8221; Edwards quickly rejected Van Hollen&#8217;s proposal&#8211;one pioneered by Elizabeth Warren in her race in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n<p>So why is Edwards saying one thing and doing another? Van Hollen is far outpacing Edwards in &#8220;hard money&#8221; donations that fall under the legal limits for direct contributions to campaigns under the <em>Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Edwards hope that &#8220;soft money&#8221; expenditures by outside groups &#8211;the <a href=\"https:\/\/donnaedwardsforsenate.com\/issue\/campaign-finance-reform\/\">same type of spending denounced on her website<\/a>&#8211;in support of her campaign will help her close the gap. In other words, she is unwilling to campaign under the rules she claims to support.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/VH-Letter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5505\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/VH-Letter.jpg\" alt=\"VH Letter\" width=\"2550\" height=\"3300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/VH-Letter.jpg 2550w, https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/VH-Letter-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/VH-Letter-791x1024.jpg 791w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2550px) 100vw, 2550px\" \/><\/a>Here is the proposed pledge:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_1.jpg\" alt=\"Free State Pledge_Page_1\" width=\"2550\" height=\"3300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_1.jpg 2550w, https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_1-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_1-791x1024.jpg 791w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2550px) 100vw, 2550px\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5507\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_2.jpg\" alt=\"Free State Pledge_Page_2\" width=\"2550\" height=\"3300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_2.jpg 2550w, https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_2-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Free-State-Pledge_Page_2-791x1024.jpg 791w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2550px) 100vw, 2550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards support rolling back the tidal wave of independent expenditures unleashed by the Supreme Court&#8217;s &#8220;disastrous Citizens United decision,&#8221; as Edwards put it. Now, Van Hollen challenged Edwards to agree with him to practice what they preach and pledge to reject spending by outside groups. But\u00a0 despite stating that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=5504\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Edwards Refuses to Join Van Hollen in Rejecting Campaign Spending by Outside Groups<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[138,112,109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-finance","category-chris-van-hollen","category-donna-edwards"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1qM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5504"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5510,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5504\/revisions\/5510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}