Boyda: "Please Stay Out of My Race"

Text of a letter written by Congresswoman Nancy Boyda today in regards to independent expenditures in the 2nd Kansas Congressional district race:

In late July, I made a public request in the pages of the Topeka Capital-Journal. I called on out-of-state political groups, Democratic and Republican alike, to keep their TV ads out of the race for the Kansas Second Congressional District.

To my knowledge, no such call had ever succeeded in American history. Because these groups are fully independent, they can buy television time in any district in the country, without asking permission from me or anyone else.

Even so, I believed that urging them to stay away was the right thing to do. Many out-of-state groups have a history of running negative, misleading ads aimed at advancing a political party rather than informing voters. I felt that Kansans should have the opportunity to decide our election without their interference.

Unfortunately, in the months since then, numerous Washington groups have disregarded this request. Freedom's Watch, the Credit Union Legislative Action Council, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have all reserved ad time in Kansas.

My sincere hope remains that all of these groups, on both sides of the aisle, will take their ads off the air. In particular, if anyone who is running ads in my support is reading this letter, here's my message to you: "Thanks, but no thanks." Please stay out of my race.

I continue to believe that I made the right decision in calling on out-of-state groups to keep out of our election, and you'd better believe I'll do the same thing when I run for re-election in 2010.

Sincerely,

Nancy Boyda

Member of Congress

(For what it's worth...we hope lots more independent groups spend on Boyda's behalf...but that's just another time we can prove we aren't in Boyda's pocket :-) )