The study averaged the net worth of each member. When members file their financial disclosure statements, they list assets and liabilities as part of minimum and maximum bet worth and CRP averaged those. For example, Sen. Amy Klobuchar reported a minimum net worth of $345,029 and a maximum of $1,104,000 for an average net worth of $724,512.

In Minnesota politics, the Republican members are much wealthier than the DFLers.

The wealthiest member of Minnesota’s delegation was Sen. Al Franken with an average net worth of $8,747,525 followed by Rep. Michele Bachmann at $1,783,508 and Rep. Chip Cravaack in 217th place with an average net worth of $1,391,551.

Those three were in the top half of Congress’ 535 members.

After Klobuchar’s $724,512 comes Rep. Erik Paulsen with an average net worth of $487,017, Rep. John Kline had $471,006, Rep. Collin Peterson had $263,005, Rep. Tim Walz with $247,502, and Rep. Betty McCollum with an average net worth of $88,005.

Rep. Keith Ellison had the lowest net worth, with negative $14,497.

The generally accepted cutoff for the top 1 percent of Americans in terms of net worth is about $9 million on 2010, a threshold that none of the Minnesota delegation report.

Eleven percent of Congress is in the top 1 percent in terms of net worth.

Photo: Opponents of Proposition 8 in California protest. Source: Dannyman, Flickr

The Minnesota for Marriage coalition, a group that is is urging voters to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, has told the media and the Minnesota campaign finance board that if they have to disclose their donors, they will be subject to violence by supporters of marriage equality.

But a string of court cases across the country have shed serious doubt on those claims, with courts finding that conservative leaders were unable to provide credible evidence of threats or violence.

Avoiding disclosure in Minnesota

The Minnesota Family Council and the National Organization for Marriage lobbied the campaign finance board to loosen disclosure on campaign spending by arguing that their donors will be targeted if their names are disclosed.

“To require groups, non profits like the Minnesota Family Council, to disclose their donors and make their donors names public would have a significant chilling effect on free speech. Even in Minnesota already it’s gotten heated in some respects,” Tom Prichard, president of MFC, told the board in June. “The concern is harassment, property damage, a chilling effect. If I know I have to disclose my name, I’m not going to get involved with the Minnesota Family Council.”

Prichard said he had knowledge of violence against donors to the Prop 8 campaign in California.

“They went after their employment, by challenging their employers. There was vandalism on certain organizations. I can think of one individual that his business suffered because he had to disclose,” he said. “I don’t think our organization should have to disclose our donors, period. We just don’t believe we should be forced to.”

Conservative Catholic columnist for the Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten, recently echoed the Minnesota Family Council’s claims.

“A block thrown through a home window. Cars vandalized. Hate-filled anonymous phone calls at home and work. Swastikas scrawled on houses of worship. Physical assaults. Dismissal from employment because of political views,” wrote Kersten. “[T]his is the sort of intimidation that Americans who support marriage as the union of a man and woman can face today. Persecution of opponents is becoming a tool of the trade for some gay-marriage activists, who—ironically—seem to view themselves as beacons of tolerance.”

She added, “Now, the groundwork for such intimidation is being laid in Minnesota.”

The groundwork is actually being laid for a lawsuit by NOM and the Minnesota for Marriage coalition against the state of Minnesota. When the campaign finance board rejected Minnesota for Marriage’s arguments that full disclosure of donors would put them at risk, the coalition announced that it would not follow the board’s disclosure rules.

But history shows that launching a lawsuit in Minnesota based on the possibility of violence against marriage amendment supporters would be an uphill battle.

Protect Marriage Washington falsified or exaggerated about threats

NOM’s claims were tested this fall in Washington state when Protect Marriage Washington (PMW), a group affiliated with NOM, lost its case in court. PMW wanted to overturn that state’s domestic partner laws through an initiative called R-71. The group was successful in gathering enough signatures to put the repeal on the ballot, but it did not want those signatures to be public arguing that “militant homosexual activist groups” would target them.

After a local paper did a feature with state legislator Elizabeth Scott, a feature that included her contact information and talked about her support for repealing the domestic partner law, she said she received death threats.

“Extremists issued multiple death threats to me and my children due to my being publicly questioned about my personal beliefs,” Scott told the Faith and Freedom Network. “I am greatly concerned for both the safety and the freedom of speech of those who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman.”

The court found that Scott’s story did not stand up to scrutiny.

“However, other than speculation, Scott does not attribute to R-71 this death threat or any other incident that she claimed could be considered harassment,” the court wrote.

After the court decision, she wrote, “I guess when the First Amendment is eliminated, we drop back to the Second.”

Gary Randall, who runs the Faith and Freedom Network that spearheaded the effort to repeal the domestic partner law, also had his own complaints about death threats, which he later retracted.

“Randall testified that he received death threats via a blog site; however, when asked to demonstrate where in the copy of the blog posting he believed a threat of his or another’s life was made he could not do so without relying on assumptions,” the court wrote, adding that Randall “finally conceding that no actual death threat was made on the website”

The court noted that Randall was referring to the website, PinkPistols.org, which is a group for LGBT people who hold conceal and carry licenses.

“This website appears to advocate for homosexuals to be armed if desired to use only in self defense,” the court said in a footnote. “[Randall] has not supplied competent evidence to the contrary.”

As a matter of fact, the website no longer exists and according to the Wayback Machine hasn’t been updated since 2006, well before Washington’s enacting of the domestic partnership law.

Other witnesses provided testimony in the Washington case that the court found lacking. One witness testified that he was harassed when two women came up to him while he was gathering signatures for R-71 and one said “we have feelings too.” Another said he found three Post-It notes on his car with vulgar language. Still another felt harassed when a passing motorist made offensive gestures at him.

In the court’s conclusion, Judge Benjamin Settle wrote:

Applied here, the Court finds that Doe has only supplied evidence that hurts rather than helps its case. Doe has supplied minimal testimony from a few witnesses who, in their respective deposition testimony, stated either that police efforts to mitigate reported incidents was sufficient or unnecessary. Doe has supplied no evidence that police were or are now unable or unwilling to mitigate any claimed harassment or are now unable or unwilling to control the same, should disclosure be made.

The court did say that they’d demonstrated that there was some hostility to a same-sex marriage ban in the state, but not that it could lead to threats or violence, and that there had been no evidence that advocates had been harassed in the two years since the ballot question was introduced to Washington state voters.

California and Prop 8

In October, NOM and ProtectMarriage.com lost their bid to keep donors to the Proposition 8 campaign anonymous. The groups worked to pass Proposition 8, which repealed the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage in 2008. NOM had argued that disclosing its donors would chill free speech and that widespread violence against Prop 8 supporters would put its donors at risk.

But the judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Morrison England, a Bush appointee, found the evidence a bit thin.

[T]he vast majority of the incidents cited by Plaintiffs are arguably, as characterized by defendants, typical of any controversial campaign. For example, picketing, protesting, boycotting, distributing flyers, destroying yard signs and voicing dissent do not necessarily rise to the level of “harassment” or “reprisals,” especially in comparison to acts directed at groups in the past.

Moreover, a good portion of these actions are themselves forms of speech protected by the United States Constitution.

The court also rejected the idea that any activity directed at entities that backed Prop 8, such as the Mormon church, necessarily meant it was due to Prop 8.

“Plaintiffs have produced insufficient evidence that the more incendiary events on which they rely were connected to Proposition 8 or to gay marriage at all,” the judge wrote. “Rather, a number of these incidents were directed at the Mormon church, which, though a backer of California’s proposition, may also have been a target for any of a number of other reasons.”

And while NOM and other anti-gay marriage amendment backers said that the violence against them was widespread, the judge disagreed.

Accordingly, while Plaintiffs can point to a relatively few unsavory acts committed by extremists or criminals, these acts are so small in number, and in some instances their connection to plaintiffs’ supporters so attenuated, that they do not show a reasonable probability plaintiffs’ contributors will suffer the same fate. Given the grand scale of plaintiffs’ campaign and the massive (and national) support they garnered for their cause, plaintiffs’ limited evidence is simply insufficient to support a finding that disclosure of contributors’ names will lead to threats, harassment or reprisals.

The future in Minnesota
Government transparency advocates have been watching NOM’s actions in Minnesota very carefully. In addition to California, Washington, and Minnesota, NOM has also unsuccessfully challenged disclosure laws in Iowa, Maine, New York and Rhode Island.

“Proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage certainly are engaged in a heated debate,” wrote Common Cause Minnesota’s Mike Dean and Mark Ladov of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York Universtiy School of Law in a column for the Duluth News Tribune. “But it is insulting to claim transparency would leave major campaign donors vulnerable to the violent intimidation tactics civil-rights activists faced in the era of Bull Connor.”

Dean and Ladov pointed back to the outcry when Target Corporation gave money to a group supporting an anti-gay marriage candidate.

“[R]emember how these same groups howled about so-called ‘harassment’ when gay-rights advocates called for a boycott of Target over contributions supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. But that isn’t harassment. It’s a boycott — one of the time-honored ways in which ordinary people, without access to wealthy corporate treasuries, can organize for change and make sure their voices are heard in the political process.”

The “60 Minutes” report alleged that some members of Congress were benefiting from insider information, allegations that leaders like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Speaker John Boehner have denied. The allegations contend that members of Congress have bought and sold stock in companies that pending legislation would impact, which is legal.

Walz introduced his bill to end that type of insider trading and make it illegal for members of Congress, the same as it is for corporate leaders.

“This is about faith in the markets, it’s about faith in democracy, it’s quite honestly what I think irritates people if they believe someone is gaming the system, it hurts all of us,” Walz told KEYC News.

Although the bill, titled the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, has only one Republican among its nine sponsors, Walz’ bill is already getting some measured support from Republicans.

“I am for increased disclosure,” said Majority Leader Eric Cantor. “If there’s any sense of impropriety or any appearance of that, we should take extra steps to make sure that the public’s cynicism is addressed.”

And it’s become a campaign issue in Minnesota.

Brian Barnes, a DFL candidate challenging Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen in Minnesota’s Third Congressional District, called on Paulsen to work to end insider trading in Congress.

“This reprehensible practice—which would land business people in jail—should be banned immediately,” Barnes said. “Therefore, I am asking Rep. Erik Paulsen to join with me in condemning the members of both parties who have engaged this insider trading they themselves made legal. I am also calling on the congressman to sponsor legislation to make this disgusting conduct what it should be—criminal.”

The “No Surprises” campaign promises that Bachmann won’t have any surprises in her policy positions, unlike her competitors for the Republican presidential nomination. The campaign is part of Bachmann’s attempt to position herself as the most ideological conservative in the race.

“Elections should be simple—we shouldn’t have to settle for a candidate or compromise on issues,” said Bachmann’s campaign manager Keith Nahigian in an email to supporters on Sunday. “With Michele Bachmann—we don’t have to. With Michele Bachmann, there are no surprises. This morning our campaign launched a new website, No Surprises 2012, which highlights Michele’s opponents double-talk and inconsistent stances on the issues that matter most to you and me.”

The campaign has launched a new website to go along with the video. The website seems to be targeting Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

In his email, Nahigian added, “There is no question that this election will decide the future of our great nation. We cannot afford a candidate who will flip-flop on the issues and ‘say one thing but do another.’ As the proven Tea Party leader against the Obama agenda, Michele is the true consistent conservative in this race, and the only one who will protect our constitutional conservative principles.”

Michele Bachmann’s campaign and CBS News clashed over the weekend when her campaign was accidentally included on an email chain with CBS News’ John Dickerson explaining that Bachmann would not get as much attention during and after Saturday’s presidential debate. According to CNN, Bachmann’s campaign manager Keith Nahigian walked through the spin room and called Dickerson a “piece of shit.”

Prior to Saturday night’s foreign policy debate in South Carolina hosted by CBS and National Journal, Bachmann spokesperson Alice Stewart was accidentally copied on an email about a post debate webshow hosted by CBS. The email said that Bachmann would not receive the same amount of attention that the frontrunners would due to her low polling numbers.

Here’s a screenshot of the email provided by the Bachmann campaign:

During the debate, campaign manager Keith Nahigian sent a message to Bachmann supporters on Facebook:

“While Michele has been onstage at tonight’s debate demonstrating strong leadership on foreign policy and national security, we received concrete evidence confirming what every conservative already knows – the liberal mainstream media elites are manipulating the Republican debates by purposely suppressing our conservative message and limiting Michele’s questions,” he said. “[W]e need to show the liberal media elite that we won’t stand for this outrageous manipulation. Help us fight this affront by sharing this with your friends.”

Nahigian followed that up with an email message to supporters accusing the media of anti-Bachmann bias (Nahigian’s emphasis).

“[W]e will NOT stand for this pathetic attempt by the liberal media to manipulate the Republican primary process by limiting Michele’s conservative message for Republican primary voters,” he wrote. “ALL AMERICANS should be offended by this blatant attempt to manipulate the nominating process. Primaries are about voters, NOT the media elites. This is OUR primary and we will fight this blatant attempt to suppress Michele’s conservative message.”

According to CNN, during the debate, Nahigian ran through the spin room where the media and campaign staffers were gathered and said, “John Dickerson should be fired. He is a piece of shit. He is a fraud and he should be fired.”

After the debate, Bachmann told CNN, “I think it’s only respectful to allow the candidates to be able to speak and not intentionally ahead of time make a decision to limit candidates’ opportunity to speak to the American people. Clearly this was an example of media bias.”

The influential lobby for the environment said Friday that it was jumping into the same-sex marriage debate because of its commitment to social justice.

“To achieve our mission of environmental protection and a sustainable future for our planet, we must attain social justice and human rights at home and around the globe,” said Margaret Levin, the state director of the Sierra Club North Star Chapter. “The Sierra Club North Star Chapter has a long history of working together to protect our communities and our planet. We do not tolerate injustice, and we will not stand by and allow our state constitution to be used as a means of dividing communities and harming families.”

It’s one of the first times a chapter of the powerful environmentalist group has backed an LGBT rights issue. The group declined to get involved in California’s Prop 8 battle in 2008 and Maine’s Question One in 2009.

Source: Still from an MSNBC video of the event.

During Michele Bachmann’s unveiling of her foreign policy plans in South Carolina, the presidential candidate was protested by Occupy Wall Street activists who held a “mic check” demonstration asserting that Bachmann’s rhetoric divides people.

The group of about two dozen protesters chanted in unison, “This will only take a minute… You capitalize on dividing Americans… claiming people that disagree with you… are unpatriotic socialists… and you promote discrimination.”

The Occupy movement has used the mic check to amplify a message in crowded situations.

As Republicans in the crowd shouted down the protesters, a police officer escorted Bachmann offstage for a brief moment.

Here’s video of the protest:

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Hours later, Bachmann’s campaign manager, Keith Nahigian, sent an email to supporters that pivoted the flap into a spiel on Veteran’s Day:

In the last hour while Michele was giving a foreign policy speech aboard the USS Yorktown in South Carolina; she was interrupted by protestors from the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. While they did all that they could to interrupt her speech, Michele returned to the stage to continue her remarks, and she praised the 1st Amendment of the Constitution which guarantees the rights of the protestors to speak.

Regardless of political creed, our nation’s military men and women defend the right of every American to enjoy the incredible liberties our Constitution provides. I hope these protestors, while aboard the USS Yorktown on the 236th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, and on the eve of Veteran’s Day took a moment to thank our troops who so bravely fight for our first amendment rights.

Two polls show that the amendment might get defeated while two others show a slight lead for anti-gay marriage activists.

On Thursday, the St. Cloud State University Survey was released showing that 47 percent of Minnesotans thought the constitution should not be amended and 44 percent said it should. The difference is within the poll’s 5 percent margin of error, making the result a statistical tie.

The St. Cloud Times notes that the margin changes drastically depending on what type of phone the user answered: 48 percent of landline phone users supported the amendment compared to 39 percent of cell phone users.

A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll released on Wednesday found that 46 percent of registered voters support the amendment while 40 percent said they would vote against it. Interestingly, the poll also asked whether someone would not vote on the issue, which is considered a “no” vote in Minnesota. Ten percent said they did not plan to vote at all on the question bringing the total of opposition and under-vote to 50 percent, within the poll’s 4.3 percent margin of error making the question a statistical tie.

The landline versus mobile split was also present in the SurveyUSA poll. Only 34 percent of mobile users planned to vote for the amendment while 50 percent of landline users planned to vote for it.

The Star Tribune released its Minnesota poll on Tuesday showing that 48 percent of Minnesotans support the amendment, 43 percent opposed it and 8 percent are undecided. The results were within the poll’s margin of error, meaning that this poll as well was a statistical tie.

The result matches closely with what SurveyUSA found but completely opposite of the St. Cloud State University poll.

The one poll that was an outlier in this week was a poll by QEV Analytics commissioned by Minnesota for Marriage, the group advocating for the gay marriage ban. In that poll, 51 percent of voters said they would vote for the amendment and 40 percent would vote against it.

Minnesota for Marriage released the poll in response to the Star Tribune poll, which the group calls biased.

“The Star Tribune survey showing us with a five point lead substantially understates our true position. This is not surprising given the newspaper’s historic bias against conservative issues and candidates,” Minnesota for Marriage chair John Helmberger said in a statement. “We are releasing our own survey, which utilized the actual wording of the amendment question being presented to voters, to show that we enter the campaign in a very strong position.”

The QEV poll excluded media and political employees and their families from the poll. It asked, “Are you, or anyone in your household, employed with an advertising agency, newspaper, television or radio station, or political campaign?” Anyone who answered in the affirmative was excluded from the poll.

The poll also differed in that it heavily sampled older Minnesotans. Only 35 percent of the poll’s respondents were under age 50, while 60 percent were 50 years old and over.

QEV has been the pollster of choice for the National Organization for Marriage which is part of the Minnesota for Marriage coalition.

Both testified that DOMA hurts same-sex couples who are legally married in several states. Franken told his colleagues that repealing the law would have not consequences for heterosexual couples, and that allowing same-sex marriage won’t make anyone gay.

The repeal effort passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 10-8. It still needs to pass a full vote on the Senate floor and faces opposition in the Republican-controlled House, although Minnesota Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and Tim Walz are supporters of the House version.

Klobuchar said she was “struck” by the number of people who testified against DOMA in hearings last summer.

“They were discriminated against and unfairly harmed,” Klobuchar said. “They were denied protections like the ability to take off work to care for a dying partner and denied survivor benefits when a partner died.”

Klobuchar also said the issue wasn’t about religion.

“Whatever we vote on today and whatever happens today, the bill doesn’t require any church or mosque or synagogue to perform same-sex marriage. As the debate on this continues, we cannot lose sight of that,” she said.

Franken took issue with a statement by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who argued that marriage has always been defined as the union of one man and one woman. Franken argued that was false.

“In many cultures, men have been able to marry many women and young girls. For centuries, women have been treated as cattle in marriage. Further, if the religious purpose for marriage is procreation, why would we sanction marriage between an 89-year-old widower and an 80-year-old widow?” Franken said. “I just think we need to be accurate when we talk about the history of marriage, the history of man and woman, the history of our institutions.”

Franken spoke about couples in Minnesota who have been harmed by DOMA including a young couple who met in divinity school and married in Connecticut who have to lie on their federal tax forms and say they are single.

He talked about another Minnesota couple that married in Iowa, John and Jeff Westerfield. John was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

“Jeff won’t have the federal right to take a medical leave. If John passes, Jeff won’t see a dime from Social Security,” said Franken. “DOMA hurts people who love each other. DOMA hurts people who want to adopt kids and raise them and take care of them. DOMA hurts families.

“We need to pass this bill. Straight people aren’t suddenly going to become gay, Straight people aren’t going to stop getting married. We are going to be just fine. Really.”

The bill, dubbed the Respect for Marriage Act, passed the committee on a party-line vote.

Boisclair works for the Society for Truth and Justice, an anti-abortion group whose staffers are running primary challenges around the country in order to exploit a campaign law loophole and get graphic ads aired on broadcast television, as the Minnesota Independent first reported.

In a press release titled, “Christian challenges Muslim for congressional seat,” Boisclair announced that he had launched his first ad.

“We did not pick this fight,” Boisclair said. “Islam’s war against Christianity and human liberty has raged against us for 1,400 years. We are merely responding with the truth.”

“The call to violent acts against Christians and Jews within this ‘holy’ book should alarm every American. The fact that a U.S. Congressman swore an oath on a book that calls for most of us to be persecuted is an outrage.”

The video was deemed offensive by Youtube and promptly pulled from the video hosting service. Ellison praised the move.

“I’d like to thank YouTube for removing the ad because it violated the company’s ‘policy on shocking and disgusting content,’” Ellison wrote in a statement. “The people of Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District elected me to uphold our Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion for every American. I intend to maintain the high level of civility the voters expect and deserve. And, I will continue working with our communities to organize for greater inclusion of people of all faiths and backgrounds.”

Boisclair, who currently works in Washington, DC, for the Society for Truth and Justice is one of several candidates from that organization running in primary challenges against House members in order to force local media outlets to air the candidates’ ads no matter how graphic.

The Federal Communications Act of 1934 says that all candidates for a specific office must have equal access to public airwaves.

Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist who founded the group, is also running a Democratic primary challenge against President Obama. Earlier this week, Terry began soliciting $100,000 in donations to air graphic anti-abortion ads in the 2012 Democratic primaries and caucuses.

Boisclair told the Hopkins Patch that he doesn’t yet have the money to air his anti-Islam ads, but hopes to in time for the election

Here’s Boisclair’s new ad: