WASHINGTON — End Citizens United today announced a major ad buy in New Hampshire and Missouri pressuring Republican Senators Kelly Ayotte and Roy Blunt to drop their pledge to block the confirmation of any Supreme Court nominee.
End Citizens United is the first progressive group to go up on air in this Supreme Court fight.
The Judicial Crisis Network – a Koch network-backed group[1] – is currently running ads in New Hampshire defending GOP obstruction. End Citizen United will match the Judicial Crisis Network dollar-for-dollar in New Hampshire, while opening up a new front in Missouri.
“End Citizens United exists to fight the corrupting influence of big money in politics – a problem the Supreme Court itself compounded with its disastrous Citizens United decision,” said Reed Adamson, Senior Advisor to End Citizens United. “The best opportunity we have to reform our campaign finance system is to confirm a new justice.”
“As long as Republicans are standing in the way of confirming a new justice, anonymous corporate money will continue to flood into our elections and corrupt our democracy,” Adamson added.
End Citizens United recently conducted a poll in New Hampshire showing that Ayotte’s position is extremely unpopular among her state’s voters. By a 2-1 margin (64 percent to 32 percent), New Hampshire voters want the Supreme Court vacancy filled.
You can view the New Hampshire ad here and the Missouri ad here.
End Citizens United PAC was established in March 2015 to counter the disastrous effects of Citizens United and reform our campaign finance system. ECU has raised more than $7 million from more than 500,000 contributions, with an average contribution of $14.
Read more on End Citizens United from Roll Call: Campaign Finance Reform PAC Wants to Be a Player in 2016.
[1] “The JCN story: Building a secretive GOP judicial machine.” Viveca Novak and Peter Stone, The Center for Responsive Politics, 03/23/15