CONCORD – Another outside group is going up with a new TV commercial in New Hampshire’s blockbuster Senate race in the fight over President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination.
End Citizens United Thursday will launch an ad that targets Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte over her refusal to consider the nomination of federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland to fill the high court vacancy. NH1 News Wednesday was fist to report the ad buy.
“Ever feel like Republicans in Washington just aren’t listening. Last time the Senate refused to hold a hearing or a vote for a Supreme Court nominee was 1875 and this is what they used to send Washington a message,” says the narrator in the spot, as a picture of an old telegraph appears on the screen.
“That’s right. The telephone hadn’t even been invented yet. Luckily now you can just call Sen. Ayotte. Tell her to stop blocking the nominee. It’s time to do her job,” concludes the narrator.
The group tells NH1 News that they’ll spend $425,000 to run their commercial for two weeks on television statewide in New Hampshire, including WBIN-TV.
End Citizens United is a year-old political action committee which touts on its website that it’s “ultimate goal is to do exactly what its name says: pass a constitutional amendment to reverse the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that has led to the plethora of super PACs.”
It’s the second spot in a month that End Citizens United has gone up with in the Granite State targeting Ayotte over the nomination fight.
Since the unexpected death last month of conservative Supreme Court associate justice Antonin Scalia, nearly all of the 54 Senate Republicans have insisted that with the future direction of the high court at stake, the next president, rather than Obama, fill the vacancy.
National and state Democrats have been making the Supreme Court vacancy battle a key issue in drive to try and win back control of the Senate, and Ayotte’s faced constant criticism for the past six weeks. She’s also facing a strong Democratic challenge this year from Gov. Maggie Hassan, in what’s turning into the most high profile, expensive and negative campaigns in the country
But Ayotte’s standing her ground, recently telling NH1 News that “I believe that people should be weighing in in the November elections before a confirmation process goes forward based on who gets elected president in November.”
Senate Majority PAC, the leading third-party group supporting Democratic Senate candidates, has also spent big bucks in recent weeks to go up with ads in New Hampshire criticizing Ayotte. And the conservative group Judicial Crisis Network is running spots supporting Ayotte.