We’ve spent a good chunk of the day trying to find out from Dan Saltzman why he decided to break his campaign spending pledge to not raise more than $150,000, the amount given to candidates under the Voter Owned Elections system—one of whom is his challenger, Amanda Fritz.

So far, we’ve received no word from Saltzman or his campaign. I just called again, and no one is answering the phone (yeah, I know it’s Friday at 5:30, but still).

In February, he went over the limit by just a little more than $1,000. Fritz declined the matching funds, but urged Saltzman to stick with his pledge. Now, the additional contributions are almost $10,000 over. Even if Fritz wanted the matching funds (she already declined), she most likely wouldn’t be able to get them until Monday—the day before the election. Meaning she’d have no time to make use of it. At the same time, Saltzman has an additional $9,000 and change to get his message out to voters over the weekend.

We’ll let you know as soon as we hear from him. Dan, if you’re reading this, you can hit me up at smoore (at) portlandmercury (dot) com over the weekend.