The Democratic Senate candidate in South Dakota wants big money out of politics — a goal he has taken to a new level by distancing himself from his own party, which he accuses of inappropriately using campaign money to attack his opponent.
At a news conference on Monday, Weiland slammed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for running attack ads against his Republican opponent Mike Rounds, which he claims have backfired and hurt his own campaign. Polls show that South Dakotans accuse Weiland of running the more negative campaign, which he alleged is the fault of his party.
Rick Weiland has focused his campaign on the need for campaign finance reform to take back the government from lobbyists, special interests and big corporations. During his campaign, the candidate has met South Dakotans in all 311 of the state’s towns and has given them his business card, which features the first action he would take if elected in bold letters on the back: a constitutional amendment to reinstate regulations on campaign finance.
“You put negative on a candidate and you put your disclosure at the bottom that says ‘Paid for by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee,’ the Democratic candidate’s going to get blamed for that,” Weiland said at the news conference, according to the Argus Leader. Weiland further asserted that the ads which target Rounds’ mismanagement of the state’s EB-5 visa program were an attempt to hurt his campaign and boost that of his independent opponent, former Senator Larry Pressler, who Weiland claims has a personal relationship with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D).
But Weiland’s resistance to money in government runs much deeper than negative advertising in his race. He told ThinkProgress in an interview that we’re never going to get our government working for the middle class again until we get the money out of politics.
“There are just too many special interests with lots of dough who line the pockets of wannabe members of the Senate and the House and those candidates, if they get elected, are way too beholden to their donors and not the voters,” he said. “I want to be beholden to the voters, not the donors.”
Early in his campaign, Weiland challenged Rounds to limit campaign contributions to $100.
“He turned me down cold,” Weiland said. “As a matter of fact, he boasted he was going to raise $9 million and spend most of his time out of state doing it. So I’m shaking hands in Dallas, South Dakota and he’s shaking hands in Dallas, Texas.”
Weiland’s opposition to campaign finance has earned him the support of Larry Lessig’s Mayday PAC which aims to reshape Congress in the 2016 elections and get legislation enacted to reduce the influence of money in elections in early 2017. Weiland acknowledged that taking money from the Super PAC to end all PACs is ironic, but Rounds was unwilling to change the campaign rules. “I’m not going to tie both hands behind my back,” he said.
Although national attention was focused on the tight Senate race in South Dakota earlier this month, polls now show Rounds leads Weiland by nine points with just a week until Election Day.