Scott Brown, Elizabeth Warren sign pledge banning third-party involvement in race

By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff

Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Elizabeth Warren today signed a novel ban on third-party ads in their hotly contested US Senate race, after both sides postured to gain maximum public relations advantage from the agreement.

“I’m pleased Professor Warren has joined with me in signing my People’s Pledge,” Brown said in a statement after putting his own signature on a signed pledge forwarded to him earlier in the morning by Warren.

“This is a great victory for the people of Massachusetts, and a bold statement that puts super PACs and other third parties on notice that their interference in this race will not be tolerated. This historic agreement means the candidates will be in control of their own campaigns and accountable for what is said,” he added.

In her own statement, Warren heralded the achievement reflected by the agreement.

Elizabeth Warren

“I appreciate Scott Brown’s quick and affirmative response to my proposal this morning,” she said. “With our joint agreement, we have now moved beyond talk to real action to stop advertising from third-party groups. But both campaigns will need to remain vigilant to ensure that outside groups do not try to circumvent what is an historic agreement. This can give Massachusetts voters a clear choice come Election Day.”

Brown, who has the most to gain from the agreement after already being outspent by 3-to-1 by pro-Warren groups, immediately targeted online ads being paid for by RethinkBrown. It is a pro-Warren super PAC run by former aides to Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat like Warren.

“We will suspend our advertising campaign, provided other third parties do the same,” said RethinkBrown spokesman Steve Crawford. “Through our website, www.rethinkbrown.com, the news media, social media, and other means of modern campaigning, we will provide factual analysis of the record that Brown is afraid to have exposed.”

Other outside groups also promised to comply - with similar reservations.

The League of Conservation Voters, which has already aired over $2 million in ads attacking Brown’s record, said it, too, would try to honor the accord.

“While we cannot take directions from any candidate on our independent activities, we are inclined to respect the People’s Pledge agreed to by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown, and we hope that Scott Brown will honor his end of the deal when Crossroads and the Koch Brothers inevitably break it,” said League official Navin Nayak, referring to Crossroads GPS and the two brothers who have sponsored anti-Warren ads.

The Massachusetts Democratic Party said it would honor the ban.

“We plan to beat Scott Brown by continuing to grow and strengthen our state-wide grassroots infrastructure that helped us reelect Governor Patrick, win every statewide race, and send an entirely Democratic congressional delegation to Washington in 2010, not through paid advertisements,” which promised to honor the ban even if Warren does not end up as its nominee.

Yet the challenge in enforcing the agreement, which echoed a failed 1996 ad pact between then candidates William F. Weld and John Kerry, was immediately evident.

Crossroads GPS, a pro-Brown group, was noncommittal.

“Because the agreement allows union phone banks, direct mail, and get-out-the-vote drives – all union core specialties – Warren’s latest agreement has loopholes the Teamsters could drive a truck though, the longshoremen could steer a ship through, the machinists could fly a plane through, and government unions could drive forklifts of paperwork through,” said Steven Law, American Crossroads president and CEO.

And despite the League’s response, both campaigns acknowledged that broadcasters - who reaps millions from campaign ads - are unlikely to turn down the advertisements from outside groups, even as the agreement includes sending a joint letter urging them to do so.

Ed Piette, president and general manager of WBZ-TV and myTV38, said on Friday that television stations have the right to reject issue ads and political action committee ads. But although he had yet to review the campaigns’ pending request, he does not expect to turn down ads to satisfy their agreement.

Scott Brown

“We’re a broadcaster,” he said. “We’re not in politics.”

He added: “We don’t get involved in the politics of politics, and that’s what this is all about.”

Brown and Warren are the likely candidates in what could be one of this year’s most hotly contested US Senate races.

Brown is battling to retain the seat he won in a January 2010 special election to replace the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, while Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, is expected to emerge from a group of lesser-known Democrats aiming to win the seat back for their party.

Democrats currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but during this year’s campaign, they are defending 23 seats. Republicans are defending only 10, so the Democrats are trying to take control of GOP seats wherever possible to cushion against the potential loss of their own seats.

A net gain of four Senate seats would allow Republicans to take control of the chamber.

That narrow margin is enticing to pro-Republican groups, while the fertile territory of heavily Democratic Massachusetts is attractive to pro-Democrat groups.

The third-party ad ban is designed to control what is already prodigious outside spending on the race. By some projections, the campaign could cost at least $60 million, with $20 million apiece being spent by the Brown and Warren campaigns and another $20 million being spent by special interest groups with an interest in the outcome.

The outside spending is the most troublesome to both Brown and Warren, the campaigns say, because it can be leveled by so-called 527 or super PAC groups that are funded by sometimes anonymous and deep-pocketed donors, and are not directly accountable to the candidates.

On Jan. 13, Brown proposed an agreement between the two groups, and in advance of a negotiating session last week, forwarded his own signed agreement to Warren.

In addition to calling on outside groups not to place their ads - something the groups are under no legal requirement to adopt - Brown suggested penalties for each campaign if they benefit from such ads.

Brown said his campaign would have to donate 50 percent of the value of any spending on his behalf to a charity of Warren’s choice, and she would have to do the same to a charity of his choosing if he was targeted with an outside ad benefitting her.

Warren responded with her own letter suggesting that the candidates sign a joint letter “explicitly notifying known third party groups – and new groups as they emerge – of the agreement.”

She also suggested notifying broadcasters in hopes of getting their help, and “ensuring that the agreement not only cover express advocacy ads, but all paid public advertisements that seek to promote or attack either candidate or campaign.”

A negotiating session on Friday ended after a half-hour, but the disagreement was resolved this morning after Warren sent Brown a revised pledge she had already signed.

He responded by signing it immediately.