Our Pledge Policy
As a campaign, we have been invited to sign many worthy pledges over the past several months. Campaign pledges exist for a variety of reasons. For example, a candidate may be asked to sign a pledge to reject money from a specific sector, type of contributor, or above a certain dollar amount. They may be asked to safeguard a program once in office, or to restrict or expand specific policies.
We want to ensure that, when our campaign signs a pledge from an organization, it advances a goal that we would not be able to achieve another way. After all, we express our values and policies through our campaign platform, developed over time. What, then, is the core purpose of signing a pledge?
I believe we have arrived at an answer: accountability.
A pledge creates a partnership with an organization that holds us to account in a public, enforceable way. Because a pledge’s peak benefit to a campaign exists during candidacy itself, we have determined that any pledge we sign must be tied to the timeframe that offers accountability through a clear enforcement mechanism.
We have decided that a pledge must meet the following criteria for us to sign it. A pledge must:
Align with the campaign's values and platform;
Be written and supported by a publicly knowable, organized body governed by a decision-making structure (e.g., one with bylaws);
Call for a specific action that is achievable within the duration of the campaign; and
Have a clear enforcement protocol for failure to meet the pledge's terms once signed.
As with any endeavor, we are learning as we go and may adjust this policy as experience teaches us. We will make every attempt to be as transparent and responsive as we can, and to approach each invitation to sign a pledge with integrity and in a spirit of partnership. When we choose not to sign a pledge that aligns with our values and platform but does not meet other criteria, we will invite a conversation with the authors of the pledge as to how we can advance the spirit of the request through other means.