Hoyer calls on Priorities USA not to sit out 2014

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is calling on Democratic super PAC Priorities USA Action to scrap their plan to sit out the midterms. 

Asked by MSNBC host Ed Schultz Thursday whether he wants Priorities USA to get involved in the midterms, Hoyer replied “absolutely.”

{mosads}“We want them engaged. We want all the voters engaged, whether they agree with us or disagree with us; democracy works best when all of us participate,” he added. 

BuzzFeed reported earlier this month that Priorities plans to sit out the midterms to save up for the 2016 elections, where it is already preparing for a run by Hillary Clinton.

The super-PAC played a major role in President Obama’s 2012 reelection, including its famous attack ads targeting Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital.

After Schultz showed the article on screen, Hoyer disagreed. “Sitting out this coming election is not an option,” he said. “We cannot afford to continue to have the crises that we’ve had fiscally, which have held the economy down.”

Just as Obama did, Hoyer has made his peace with the Democratic group, now calling for it to be engaged, despite being deeply critical of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allows the super-PAC to exist.

“The consequences of that decision have seen the voices of ordinary citizens drowned out by the unprecedented influence of political organizations wielding tens of millions of dollars from undisclosed donors with unknown agendas,” Hoyer said in 2012, referring to Citizens United.

Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod also criticized Priorities’ decision. On Feb. 6, the day after the BuzzFeed story appeared, Axelrod tweeted, “With the Senate seriously at risk, and the Koch Brothers spending prodigiously, shouldn’t Dem funders be focused on ’14 and not ’16 races?”