Call Rep. Kaptur and Rep. Sutton: Pay DCCC Dues to Help Targeted Dems

Chris Bowers has a post up renewing the "Use It or Lose It" campaign that was so successful in 2006. The idea is to pressure Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are behind in paying their DCCC dues to contribute right away, so that the DCCC can use the money to help candidates on their growing list of targeted races.

The Ohio legislators on the list are Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo), who owes $50,000, and Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Copley Twp), who owes $100,000. Each is cruising to re-election in her own race. Rep. Kaptur is the one who is flush with campaign cash, having just reported $985,198.80 on hand as of October 15th. Rep. Sutton reported $36,548.72 cash on hand.

Here is the contact info:

Rep. Kaptur (419) 693-0078 Contact page

Rep. Sutton (330) 576-5380 BettySutton08@gmail.com

Call or email one or both of them and ask them to pay their DCCC dues, or as much as they can. As Bowers says:

Be polite. Be encouraging. But also, be urgent. Mention how little time there is left. Mention how many great pickups chances we have, but for which we need more money.

UPDATE: Rep. Sutton's office called me to say that she does not owe $100,000 in DCCC dues, and to point out that she has already done an extraordinary amount to help Democratic candidates. Rep. Sutton has paid over $130,000 in DCCC dues, and the caller thought that her total owed was $150,000 rather than $200,000. As for activities outside the context of DCCC dues, he said that Rep. Sutton has contributed or helped raise more than $150,000 for Red-to-Blue congressional candidates and another $200,000 for other candidates (I hope I got those figures right). Significantly she recently contributed $25,000 to the Ohio House Democratic House Caucus, which is hugely important with the party only four seats away from taking control of that chamber.