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.”

Cleta Mitchell, a partner in Foley and Lardner, registered as a lobbyist on Oct. 26 to represent NOM. The HRC said it was downgrading Foley and Mitchell from 100 percent to 60 percent on its corporate equality index.

The Minnesota Independent first reported about Mitchell registering as a lobbyist at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board last week. Mitchell’s expertise is in assisting Tea Party candidates and organizations with campaign finance laws. She’s helps candidates identify loopholes in the campaign finance system. The National Organization for Marriage has been urging the campaign finance board to relax disclosure laws so that it will not have to disclose its donors.

On Tuesday, HRC sent a letter to Jay Rothman, CEO of Foley and Lardner, alerting the firm that it was losing its 100 percent rating which it earned in 2010 and was being downgraded to 60 percent due to Mitchell’s involvement with NOM and the anti-gay marriage amendment in Minnesota.

“In a time when major corporations, including the nation’s top law firms, are taking unprecedented strides in support of LGBT equality with regards to their workplace practices and business activities, your firm has regrettably taken a notable step backwards,” the letter said. “In the 2010 [Corporate Equality Index], Foley & Lardner achieved a perfect 100 score. In the 2012 CEI to be released next month, your firm will drop further to a 60, one of the lowest scores earned by an Am Law firm in the upcoming report.”

Foley and Lardner had also worked for an anti-gay marriage group in Washington, D.C., in 2009, causing HRC to temporarily drop its rating.

We fully recognize that the legal profession has the duty to represent unpopular clients and take on controversial cases,” HRC wrote of the firm’s 2009 work. “Ms. Mitchell is a registered lobbyist on behalf of NOM in Minnesota, which goes well beyond any professional or ethical obligations of legal representation. Moreover, the firm has established a clear pattern of knowingly taking on anti-LGBT organizations as clients, even after we and others in the community expressed concerns.”

JoeSolmonese_letter_FoleyAndLardner_Nov2011

On July 19th, 2011, Mitt Romney attended a dinner party for potential donors put on by the super Political Action Committee (PAC), Restore Our Future. Under the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) coordination guidelines, Romney’s presence at the fundraiser didn’t cross any boundaries, as long as he didn’t explicitly ask for money at the event.

But if the dinner party had been in June 2011, Romney would have been stretching the legal bounds of allowed coordination between a candidate and a super PAC. The FEC issued an advisory opinion on the question in July. The timing of Romney’s meeting highlights just how quickly the already ambiguous guidelines on coordination, which regulate the relationship between candidates and super PACs, are changing, and how they stretch the boundaries of campaign finance.

On the other side of the organization spectrum, 501(c) nonprofits are accepting unlimited, anonymous donations and funneling them into super PACs, providing complete secrecy to donors. But these nonprofits, too, are buttressed by weak regulation, say critics. Meanwhile, their funding increases as a result of the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

Candidates can only solicit money from nonprofits if the organization’s “main purpose” is not political activity, according to FEC regulations. If a 501(c) organization exceeds the minimum amount of political activity, it becomes a Qualified Nonprofit Corporation, and can then make political independent expenditures. But as reported by Roll Call last week, a more precise definition than “main purpose” has “never been clearly spelled out.”

The Internal Revenue Service says 501(c) nonprofits can only participate in “insubstantial” amounts of political activity, which Washington insiders have taken to mean social aid work must be 51 percent of the group’s purpose. But that is understood more as a rule of thumb.

This distinction has come under increased scrutiny as nonprofits both receive and give donations in the political realm — including to super PACs.

In 2010, the nonprofit advised by Karl Rove, Crossroads GPS  spent tens of millions of dollars on advertisements for Senate races around the country in 2010. The actions of the nonprofit, which is affiliated with the American Crossroads super PAC, prompted Sen. Dick Durbin and the nonprofit groups Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center to request an IRS review of Crossroads 501(c) status and a clarification of the rules governing nonprofits’ political action.

Coordination confusion

Federal laws guiding super PAC coordination are equally narrow, say critics; super PACs may be independent groups in name, but the reality tells another story, according to critics, allowing for a large amount of activity outside the legal definition of coordination.

“The critical point is that the [coordination] laws are pretty modest,” said Paul S. Ryan, FEC Program Director and Associate Legal Counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. Candidates and super PACs “can’t coordinate on a specific detail, but it’s false that they can’t interact.”

As far as the FEC is concerned, coordination is defined as: “made in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate, a candidate’s authorized committee, or their agents, or a political party committee or its agents.”

The rules allow “a lot of interaction that’s not independent,” said Ryan. “It’s an overstatement and misstatement to say that they [super PACs] have to be independent.”

The rules have created enough head-spinning that comedian Stephen Colbert devoted his show Monday to spoofing them.

A super PAC can support a specific candidate so long as their coordination is within the limits of the three coordination “prongs,” as the FEC calls them.

The first and most widely known is the restriction on coordinated spending. Super PACs are called independent expenditure groups because the decisions about how they spend their money can’t be made with the input of a candidate, though the money can be spent in support of a candidate or an issue that is important to the candidate.

The second is a limitations on public communications that can be made in support of candidates. If the communication is for electioneering purposes, advocates the defeat or victory of a candidate, has the input of a candidate or is disseminated 120 days or fewer before the election, it is considered coordinated.

The third coordination guideline covers solicitation. The candidate is not allowed to solicit or direct any money for super PACs, said Ryan with the Campaign Legal Center but “that restriction is quite modest.”

How does this affect the system?

All the same, several groups have submitted advisory opinion requests pertaining to “coordination” to the FEC, and some of the most significant changes in campaign finance have come from these groups.

A ruling in July 2011 allowed candidates to attend super PAC fundraisers; the idea of hybrid PACs that have a bank account both for independent and coordinated expenditures originated with an advisory opinion request to the FEC, and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) submitted an advisory opinion request last month asking whether a leadership PAC could also open an independent expenditure bank account.

But “the cutting edge of how much interaction on the spending of money can you get away with,” said Ryan, is being pushed by the super PAC American Crossroads. Its request seeks permission for American Crossroads to run advertisements that “feature incumbent members of Congress who might face uncertain re-election prospects,” and asks whether this could hurt its status as an independent expenditure committee.

Weakness of the FEC

The Federal Election Commission, the body charged with enforcing campaign finance laws, is first and foremost hampered by an ideological divide. Five of its six commissioners are on expired terms, and three Republican commissioners “think all campaign finance laws unconstitutional.”

This leads to lax regulation of what is already an “unlimited, unregulated shadow campaign,” says Ryan. “Million-dollar contributions to the Super PACs pose just as big a threat of corruption as would million-dollar contributions directly to candidates.”

Mitchell’s expertise is in campaign finance law and Minnesota for Marriage—of which NOM is a member—has already announced plans to challenge Minnesota’s finance law surrounding ballot initiatives.

Mitchell registered as a lobbyist with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board last Wednesday, according to board records. She’s the only lobbyist that NOM has currently registered in Minnesota, although NOM President Brian Brown was registered for a month earlier this year.

Mitchell is a rising star in conservative politics, mainly for her efforts in opposing campaign finance laws and helping candidates and groups exploit loopholes in existing laws. She’s represented a slew of tea party candidates including Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Joe Miller in Alaska, Sen. Jim DeMint in South Carolina, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio in Florida and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire.

Mitchell has taken the lead in taking down ACORN, testified in the U.S. Senate against public financing for federal elections, and coached the Daily Show’s Samantha Bee on how to use a 527 to get past campaign finance rules. She has also assisted the American Issues Project in defending their ads attempting to “swift boat” candidate Barack Obama in 2008, defended Rep. Tom Delay prior to his fraud conviction and has pushed for photo ID laws across the country.

But her new gig as lobbyist in Minnesota appears to be focused on the anti-gay marriage amendment and efforts by the National Organization for Marriage to oppose Minnesota’s campaign finance rules governing disclosure during ballot campaigns.

Cleta opposes marriage equality for same-sex couples. She spearheaded efforts to repeal marriage equality in Washington, D.C. She staged a walkout of board members at the Conservative Political Action Conference in D.C. this spring in protest of CPAC’s decision to allow GOProud, a group of conservative LGBT activists, to attend the event.

NOM and Minnesota for Marriage have been very vocal about their opposition to Minnesota’s campaign finance disclosure rules regarding ballot initiative committees. NOM and MFM say that they shouldn’t have to disclose any of their donors for fear of boycotts or political retaliation from supporters of gay rights.

Mitchell has already become involved in the battle over campaign finance and the ballot campaigns.

Mitchell was the author of a letter to the campaign finance board in protest of the state’s disclosure guidelines. In it, she reiterated the complaints offered by NOM, claiming that members of the LGBT community will attack donors if they’re publicly disclosed.

“The board’s sudden attempt to change the law in order to subject the source(s) of NOM funds used to support the Marriage Referendum puts a bullseye squarely on the forehead of every NOM donor, supporter and member if disclosed and any alleged ‘informational interest’ is purely artificial,” wrote Mitchell. “In sum, this newly concocted disclosure and regulatory scheme is unlawful, is not constitutionally sound, threatens NOM members, donors and supporters with personal injury and harm and the Board should cease immediately its efforts to rewrite Minnesota law to achieve this unlawful purpose.”

The campaign finance board is continuing to evaluate it’s guidance for ballot campaigns and what donations and expenditures will need to be disclosed in light of new rules passed by the Minnesota Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2010.

The board’s rulings have come under heightened scrutiny in recent months as the board works to adjust its policies to new laws passed in 2010. The board has been receiving feedback from both anti-gay marriage amendment supporters that want as little disclosure as possible and open government groups that favor full disclosure.

The board rejected a recommendation by campaign finance staff to relax some of the campaign finance guidance that had been considered at the agency’s June and October meetings, but board members also voted to carry forward with more research into the several aspects of ballot campaign disclosure.

Specifically, the board is looking into how to classify expenditures and if only “expressed advocacy” should be counted as an expenditure. For instance, in the 2010 gubernatorial election, the National Organization for Marriage launched more than $700,000 in campaign ads on the amendment and suggested that Republican Tom Emmer was the only candidate that supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. But because the ads did not explicitly tell voters who to support or take a position on whether the amendment should make it to the ballot, the ads were not subject to campaign finance disclosure rules.

The board’s proposed guidance would close that loophole.

“The vote is a temporary victory for disclosure because it is still possible that the board will only require disclosure of political advertisements that expressly advocate the election or defeat of the ballot campaign,” Mike Dean of Common Cause Minnesota told the Minnesota Independent. “This could mean that advertising that does not explicitly state ‘vote for’ or ‘vote against’ the constitutional amendment would not be required to disclose the sources of their campaign contributions.”

Common Cause sent a letter to the board just before the meeting citing statute and case law that supports its position.

The letter asked the board to implement rules to help “steer the debate about what is ‘electioneering’ and what is ‘issue advocacy’ back to a conversation that makes sense to average voters and not just election law lawyers.” It also asked the board to adopt the Federal Elections Commission standards.

“This letter was instrumental in convincing board members to reject the staff recommendations,” Dean said. “The next step is that the staff is going to provide additional language on what is a ballot question expenditure that is not so narrowly defined that it creates a giant loophole. Staff acknowledged during the meeting that if they adopted the guidance as recommended by staff, that it would create a loophole that could allow millions of dollars in undisclosed money to be spent on the ballot question next fall.”

Minnesota for Marriage, composed of the Minnesota Family Council, the National Organization for Marriage and the Minnesota Catholic Conference, has vigorously opposed any expansion of campaign finance laws that require a greater amount of disclosure.

The campaign board is proposing changes to its recently released guidance documents. Those documents tell political committees and other groups that get involved in the ballot campaigns how to account for political donations and political expenditures.

The board is considering dropping a section that directed the board’s staff to look into donations that don’t fit neatly into the disclosure requirements.

Already the board has set up disclosure requirements for money spent “that expressly advocates the adoption or defeat of a ballot question measure” or communications that are “susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a ballot question measure.”

But there may be campaign activity that isn’t as cut and dry. The board had included a provision for fundraising appeals that were more ambiguous:

The Board recognizes that communications beyond express advocacy or its functional equivalent may be communications to promote or defeat a ballot question. Staff is directed to provide further research and options for language to extend the definition of ballot question expenditure to these communications.

But at Tuesday’s meeting, the board is considering dropping that provision and that is a problem for government transparency groups like Common Cause Minnesota.

“The staff recommendation could allow millions of dollars of undisclosed money to flow into the ballot campaign in Minnesota,” Mike Dean, the group’s executive director, said in an email to the Minnesota Independent. “At the June 30 meeting, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board took an important position to protect Minnesotans right to know what special interest are funding the ballot amendment campaigns. Since then the board has begun to reverse that decision because of threats and intimidation from organizations that want to keep Minnesotans in the dark.”

Though two sides of the debate over the anti-gay marriage amendment will be subject to the board’s guidance, only one side has threatened not to follow the rules.

Earlier this month, Minnesota for Marriage said it would not comply with any of the new guidance set forth by the board opting only to follow older rules set up well before the Legislature created a new campaign finance reporting system in 2010. The group is urging Minnesotans to support the constitutional amendment.

Minnesota for Marriage is a partnership between the Catholic bishops, the Minnesota Family Council and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). NOM and groups affiliated with it have attempted to shield donors and supporters by challenging existing public disclosure laws in almost a dozen states. It has also lost in almost every state the group has launched a challenge.

The board will take up a recommended changes at its meeting on Tuesday which will also include some language tweaks.

The board is dropping its plan to research when and how an organization might be given a waiver that would allow them to opt out of disclosing their donors or expenditures. The board is also proposing changes to language regarding implied fundraising pleas.

Dean said those changes could have serious consequences and that campaign finance loopholes can add up.

“Experience at the federal level has shown this approach creates a huge loophole,” Dean said. “For example, Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, a Section 501(c)(4) organization that reported over $16 million in independent campaign expenditures during the 2010 congressional campaign, disclosed none of its donors because none of its contributions were expressly earmarked for political ads.”

Dean added, “This recommendation will only further erode public confidence in government by allowing special interests to hide behind the loopholes created by the board.”

A study released today ranked the top 100 S&P companies on how well they disclose their political activities, finding that many companies are moving towards adoption of disclosure policies, although others, such as 3M, are being left behind.

The ability for corporations to spend huge amounts of cash on elections without disclosure arose with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. The first high-profile example of citizen discontent with corporate influence on the political system came when Target gave $150,000 to a business association backing the gubernatorial bid of Tom Emmer, who opposes same-sex marriage. The backlash provoked many companies to take a second look at their political disclosure and spending policies.

The study was done by the Wharton Center for Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Political Accountability. It ranked the top 100 S&P companies based on their policies involving disclosure of contributions, independent expenditures, payments to trade associations and other tax-exempt groups and payments to ballot measure committees. I also took into account whether a company publicly archived spending reports and their level of board oversight over political involvement.

Fourteen national companies received a score of zero, meaning they offered little to no disclosure of their political activity. Those companies include Berkshire Hathaway, Walt Disney and Halliburton.

On the other side of the scale, Merck, IBM and Exelon all offered very good disclosure policies (the full ranking is at the bottom of this post).

Minnesota companies ranked for political transparency

For Minnesota companies, US Bancorp ranked at the top of the pack for transparency and disclosure. US Bancorp voluntarily reported dues paid to trade associations that fund lobbying in 2010 at more than $700,000, according to the Sunlight Foundation. There’s no legal requirement to disclose those sort of dues.

Statement on political involvement from the company’s website:

“U.S. Bancorp does not make contributions to other political actions organized under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code or to special interest lobbying groups organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, even when legally permissible.”

3M came in at the bottom of the ranking, offering little disclosure to the public or stockholders of the company’s political activities. 3M also consistently involved itself in state ballot measures, from attempts to limit people’s rights to sue companies to Minnesota’s transportation amendment, according to the Center for Political Accountability:

“In 2002, it contributed $10,000 to the committee Yes on 64 Californians to Stop Shakedown Lawsuits, which was formed in support of a successful proposition to create certain limitations on an individual’s right to sue a company because of unfair business practices. In 2006, the company contributed $5000 to Governor Schwarzenegger’s California Recovery Team, which supported an unsuccessful proposition to increase from two to five complete years the amount of time public school teachers must wait to become permanent employees.”

Neither shareholders nor the public has access to the full amount of money 3M pays to trade associations that then lobby on the company’s behalf.

Target, which served as an example for what could go wrong when corporations try to influence politics, is ranked in the middle of the study. Target has no policy on independent expenditures, but doesn’t allow dues for trade associations to be used for political purposes.

Source: Center for Political Accountability

“It’s an interesting idea, except for the fact that it’s illegal,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, which filed a brief in the case Wednesday with the Campaign Legal Center.

Under current FEC rules, a traditional PAC is allowed to have a separate segregated account for unlimited contributions if the funds are spent on independent expenditures — making it a so-called hybrid committee.

But Democracy 21, a nonprofit group working to eliminate the influence of corporate money in elections , says that because a Leadership PAC uses its independent expenditures to directly support candidates, and is sponsored by a lawmaker, it cannot accept unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and individuals.

“The answer to this question is open and shut: the federal campaign finance laws clearly and unequivocally prohibit the Leadership PAC of a Member of Congress from soliciting or receiving unlimited contributions,” said Wertheimer.

He also pegged the advisory request as the most recent tactic in the fight against campaign finance regulations: a “throw everything you can think of against the wall and see what sticks” approach.

Lee’s Constitutional Conservatives Fund is “dedicated to the cause of finding, funding, and supporting conservative candidates” and is currently actively endorsing for Republican Senate candidates in states around the country.

A lawyer for the PAC argued in the advisory request that the Constitutional Conservatives Fund’s interest in accepting unlimited contributions wasn’t a “particularly novel or unique” request.

“The Constitution simply does not permit the government to suppress free speech by restricting the right to make contributions to Independent Expenditures,” said Dan Backer, the lawyer for Lee’s fund.

Tara Malloy, associate counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, also says that there is a lot at stake in the FEC’s ruling on the issue.

“This judicial overreach, if left standing, will authorize large-scale circumvention of existing contribution limits and give rise to political corruption and the appearance of corruption,” Malloy said in a press release. “In the post-Citizens United world, corporate vehicles are already being misused to avoid disclosure…. We do not need another decision that will further undermine public faith in their elected officials and the judiciary.”

The Republican Party of Minnesota carried a debt of twice what the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party carries. And while it raised more money during September than the DFL, the GOP also spent more than it took in.

The DFL paid down some of its debt but ended September $242,593 in the hole, slightly down from last month’s debt of $261,353. The party took in $1,118,398 and spent $1,112,415. It had $53,513 in cash on hand at the end of the month.

At this point in 2009—the most recent off-election year—the party had a debt of $168,015.

The GOP carried a higher debt into October. The party had a debt of $533,222 compared to $546,779 last month. The party took in $1,734,700 but spent a bit more—$1,759,210. The party ended September with a negative cash on hand balance of $55,788.

In October 2009, the GOP listed a $193,314 debt.

St. Paul Cathedral. Source: Wikipedia

Catholics from both sides of the issue are weighing in on the plan by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to create ad hoc committees in every Catholic church in Minnesota to push the state’s constitutional same-sex marriage ban.

One lay Catholic who works for a church-affiliated organization, who asked not to be identified for fear of losing their job, told the Minnesota Independent that the organized campaign in support of the marriage amendment was “offensive, divisive and against the image of Christ we see in the Gospels.”

“But honestly after the sex abuse scandal and the cover-ups made by the hierarchy, nothing they do shocks me anymore,” the source said. ”After watching the Catholic Church use funds to pay for their lawyers, pay off victims and now shove through this amendment, I’ve decided to withhold my tithe from the church. I do not want to provide them more money to defend themselves or lobby against me and those I love. Instead, I will give that money directly to services in Minnesota that provide food and housing for the poorest among us.”

The move by Archbishop John Nienstedt is out of touch with many lay Catholics, according to a large survey of Catholics released on Monday that showed only 35 percent of Catholics oppose same-sex marriage.

The decision has riled some Catholics who oppose the religion’s opposition to same-sex marriage rights.

“Minnesota bishops have just taken the unusual step of urging parish priests across the state to form committees to help pass the proposed anti-marriage amendment in 2012,” wrote Freedom to Marry, a national group that supports marriage rights for same-sex couples. The group recently registered with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to work on the campaign to defeat the amendment.

The group continued with an appeal for money: “This isn’t the first time we’ve faced a multi-million dollar campaign funded by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to ban the freedom to marry. With your help, this time we will be prepared.”

The Rainbow Sash Movement, a national group working to protest the church’s policies on LGBT people, called Nienstedt’s plans an “abuse of authority.”

“Above and beyond all this, Archbishop Nienstedt appears not to have any concern about the unity of the Archdiocese in his drive to stigmatize the gay marriage as threat to society. He is naive if he thinks that Catholics will buckle under his political direction in this,” wrote Bill O’Connor, spokesperson of the Rainbow Sash Movement. “If anything has damaged marriage in our society, one only has to look to divorce. Perhaps this where the Archbishop should put his energies rather than trying impose an interpretation of marriage that is not grounded [in]  today’s reality, by making gay people scapegoats.”

Scott Alessi, writing for U.S. Catholic, which is published by a Roman-Catholic community of priests and brothers called the Claretian Missionaries, said Niensted’s decision was “unusual.”

“Nienstedt has made clear that for priests in his archdiocese, fighting to ensure that the state defines marriage in the same way as the church is today’s top priority,” Alessi wrote.

Alessi wondered if anti-gay marriage amendment was the most appropriate use of resources: ”If an archbishop can call upon all his pastors to form grassroots committees, appoint parish leaders, and organize a large-scale effort, is this the issue on which to do it? What if every parish developed an unemployment committee dedicated to helping out of work people in the parish community find jobs?”