NOM BLOG

Campaign Board Clears Minnesota for Marriage in Donor Complaint

 

Some media outlets were quick to talk about what they saw as a setback to NOM's legal efforts to protect our donors (even though as our Chairman John Eastman explains, it was not).

We hope the same outlets do due diligence reporting this news:

The state's campaign finance watchdog has cleared Minnesota for Marriage, an organization backing a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, of a complaint that the group did not adequately disclosed its donors.

The case goes back to last February, when Common Cause-Minnesota asked the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to investigate whether Minnesota for Marriage had listed all its donors on its 2011 finance report.

... The campaign finance board's investigation involved a review of Minnesota for Marriage's bank records, and found that the group reported all its deposits accurately.

At the same time, the board declined to investigate a second claim in the Common Cause complaint that Minnesota for Marriage was redirecting contributions to other organizations that support the amendment.

"To assert that an association's activities do not pass 'the smell test' is to acknowledge that the, complainant has no actual evidence but, rather, relies on suspicion as the basis for the complaint," the board concluded. "Suspicion alone is insufficient to compel a Board investigation."

Comments are temporarily disabled. Please try back later.