The groups behind a ballot measure that would put a ban on same-sex marriage in the Minnesota Constitution urged the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board on Tuesday to retain a rule that would allow corporations to make unlimited contributions in support of the ballot measure. The Minnesota Family Council (MFC) testified that it shouldn’t have to disclose any of its donors in the campaign to pass the amendment, while Minnesota for Marriage, of which MFC and the National Organization for Marriage are a part, brought in attorneys from the Citizens United Supreme Court case to argue that political spending by corporations on the amendment push should be shielded from disclosure laws.

The campaign finance board met to evaluate a 1998 advisory opinion on ballot measures that said corporations did not have to disclose spending on ballot campaigns. With the advent of new state statutes passed in the last few years, however, that opinion may need to be changed.

One member of the board questioned the status of corporations versus associations using the example of law firms. One law firm might be set up as a partnership and would have to disclose contributions, but another law firm that is set up as a corporation, even if it had the same number of employees and donated the same amount of money, would not have to disclose its contributions.

The Minnesota Family Council and Minnesota for Marriage argued that the opinion should stand. To argue their case, the groups brought in a lawyer from Indiana law firm Bopp, Coleson, & Bostrom. The firm was part of the Citizens United case, has done work for national anti–abortion rights groups as well as Focus on the Family, and its representative on Tuesday, Josiah Neeley, is a former clerk for Roger Vinson, District Judge for the Northern District of Florida, the judge who ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

Neeley argued that because corporations are considered legal persons, they are exempt from disclosing donations to a ballot campaign, unlike associations, which do have to disclose.

“Corporations are separate legal entities, they are legal persons,” argued Neeley. “A corporation does not fall into the definition of association.”

Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, argued that there should be no disclosure at all because donors to his campaign might be physically attacked by people who oppose the anti–gay rights amendment.

“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,” he said. “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.”

“I don’t think our organization should have to disclose our donors, period. We just don’t believe we should be forced to.”

But the majority of the testifiers supported the board in changing its opinion on corporate disclosure.

Mike Dean of Common Cause Minnesota said, “Minnesota has a long history of supporting disclosure.”

He said it helps the board gather and detect violations and cited a complaint his group filed against the National Organization for Marriage and the Minnesota Family Council over ads the groups ran in 2010 that they did not report.

“Having this knowledge allows the public to make informed decisions,” he said. “The public has a right to know who is making this political speech. Without the knowledge about who is making political speech, the public can’t evaluate the information or misinformation.”

Matt Butler of the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group testified that his group supports full disclosure of corporate ballot measure expenditures.

Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, said, “Public disclosure is essential in a democracy,” and testified about some of the legislative initiatives that support disclosure for corporations.

The board adjourned without voting on the opinion and will take it up at its June 30th meeting.

The board has released a research document explaining the confusion over the opinion and the possible changes that the board may make:

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The Minnesota Senate passed a sweeping voter identification bill Thursday that would require voters to present a government-issued photo ID card in order to vote in the state. Republicans said the measure is intended to prevent voter fraud, which they say has disenfranchised legitimate voters, while Democrats countered that it would be a travesty to democracy if even one voter was disenfranchised because they didn’t have an ID.

“Our freedom and democracy is at stake,” exhorted Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, in urging members to vote for the bill.

Maple Grove Sen. Warren Limmer brought up a familiar refrain among Republicans: “You need to use a photo ID to make a bank transaction, to rent a movie, to buy a drink at a bar, and to get on an airplane. But heaven forbid we ask someone to show an ID to vote and maintain integrity in our election system. If any illegitimate voter votes, it disenfranchises a legitimate voter, and this is a cure for that.”

Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, said there’s a lot of misinformation floating around and pointed to the controversy surrounding President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

“This bill won’t stop the .0001 percent of voters who were felons in the last election. It doesn’t indicate felon status on a driver’s license,” he said. “It doesn’t stop non-citizens from voting. It doesn’t have your citizenship status on an ID.”

He criticized Republicans’ argument that only 144,000 Minnesotans don’t have photo identification.

“Our gubernatorial race was decided by 9,000 votes; 144,000 is insignificant?,” he said. “This is as bizarre as asking the President of the United States to produce a birth certificate after two years in office. This is bizarre.”

Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said, “We just went through very intensive voter recounts in this state in 2008 and 2010. The whole country was watching. There were no cases of voter impersonation in those elections,” he said. “This bill is about putting roadblocks up to the ballot box.”

Sen. Linda Higgins, DFL-Minneapolis, said, “This voter ID bill is a bad bill. It’s disenfranchisement.”

She said the provision would keep low-income people, individuals living in battered women’s shelters and elderly citizens from voting.

“We should be proud of the system we have now,” she said. “If we pass a bill that prevents one person from voting we should be ashamed of ourselves.”

With that, the Senate voted along party lines to pass the bill. A companion bill has passed through three committees in the House and will have another committee hearing this week.

A ban on somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a technique used in some forms of stem cell research, passed the House and Senate floors on Tuesday evening in a pair of higher education budget bills. The bills would prohibit state or federal funding from going toward SCNT stem cell research. The two bills are headed to conference committee, where the two bodies will hash out the parts of the bills that differ. Gov. Mark Dayton indicated in a letter to legislators that he would veto a bill that contained the stem cell bans, citing them as policy issues that don’t belong in budget bills.

In the House, Rep, King Banaian (R-St. Cloud) moved to amend the higher education bill with language banning SCNT, calling it “human cloning.”

“This is simply concerned with the funding of research into this. It is not an outright ban,” he said on the floor. “It does not ban a state institution doing it if it was able to find private funding to do so.”

In the Senate, the higher education bill was similarly amended in committee by Sen. Michelle Fischbach (R-Paynesville), whose husband, Scott Fischbach is executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, which has lobbied for the ban.

DFLers on the Senate floor objected to the provision saying it would prevent important therapeutic research from happening in Minnesota.

“The effect of that would be very significant for our economy and jobs, and very significant for the potential to control or cure very sign diseases that affect all of our families,” said Sen. Ron Latz (DFL-St. Louis Park).

He said proponents of the bill weren’t being completely honest about its true motivations.

“It’s the agenda of [Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life] and the pro-life movement to move the line of where human conception begins,” said Latz. “I respect those who sincerely hold those beliefs, but we ought to be having it on terms that we understand that it’s not hiding behind scientific language when that’s not really what it’s doing.”

DFLers moved to amend the bill to have it ban the creation of human clones and to allow for therapeutic research.

Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville) said, “If you want to ban cloning but don’t want to stop the medical research, vote for the amendment, but don’t be pretending you want to do it because you want to ban human cloning.”

Those amendments were defeated.

Gov. Dayton wrote Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch on Tuesday stating that like his predecessor, Republican Tim Pawlenty, he would likely send back bills that contained “extraneous policy” proposals that didn’t relate to the budget.

And Dayton’s commissioner of higher education, Sheila Wright, specifically called out the stem cell ban in a letter to Republican leadership.

“Language regarding Human Cloning is moving in a separate bill and should continue to do so,” wrote Wright. “Any policy provisions not tied to the budget should be removed so we can focus on the budget.”

Gov. Mark Dayton and DFL legislators announced a push on Tuesday to beef up Minnesota’s campaign finance disclosure laws. Specifically, the bill would require quarterly reporting for campaigns that raise more than $5,000. Current law does not require campaigns to report in off years even though campaigns are taking in funds and spending funds on political campaigning.

“There’s a 13-month period of time when policy makers, myself included, are making decisions and the public doesn’t know where their political contributions are coming from,” said Dayton.

No campaign reports are due from state parties, legislators or executive branch officials during 2011 except for holdovers from the 2010 campaign cycle.

He said this bill would “require the same amount of reporting that the federal government requires.”

He added, “I’m prepared to lead by example and will voluntarily next month make the first quarterly report of my campaign committee receipts and expenditures during the first three months of this year.”

Sen. John Marty of Roseville, an author of the bill, said, “It’s time to put some muscle back into our campaign finance laws, and under the current system someone can give tens of thousands of dollars and hide in anonymity for a year.”

“I don’t think it is intentionally swaying their decision [based on campaign donations], but we are human beings, it’s a corrupt system.”

Rep. Ryan Winkler of Golden Valley, a House author of the bill said no Republicans have signed on yet.

The legislators said the legislation calling for more transparency was Gov. Dayton’s idea.

Sen. Katie Sieben of Cottage Grove said on a gloomy spring day, “It’s time to bring more sunshine into the Capitol.”

HF1099/SF631 was introduced by Sens. Marty and Sieben, and Reps. Winkler and Steve Simon of St. Louis Park, Frank Hornstein of Minneapolis, Michael Nelson of Brooklyn Park, Marion Greene of Minneapolis, Bev Scalze of Little Canada, and Phyllis Kahn of Minneapolis.

Committees in both the Minnesota Senate and House passed a bill this week that would criminalize the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) process in embryonic stem cell research as well as prohibit the products of that research from entering the state of Minnesota. Despite expert testimony that the bill would hamper medical research in Minnesota, it passed three key committees this week.

The Senate’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety heard the bill on Thursday.

John Wagner, professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota and the Stem Cell Institute, said the bill would harm research at the university. He also implied that the bill’s title, The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2011, was misleading.

There are two kinds of uses for SCNT, he told the committee: one is to create a living, breathing human clone, also called “reproductive cloning,” and another is to use SCNT for “therapeutic cloning” to create stem cell treatments for treating disease. Wagner said that no one is trying to create whole human beings with the reproductive cloning, but many researchers are using SCNT to create stem cells for medical purposes.

“Human cloning should be prohibited. Everyone is in complete agreement with that,” Wagner told the committee. “However, there is language in here that could be construed that this is also prohibiting embryonic stem cell research. And that’s the part that I think we need to make very clear.”

Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville) asked Fischbach if she would approve an amendment to protect the medical research uses of SCNT. “I’m willing to work on an amendment to try and limit it to banning reproductive cloning and to protect stem cell cloning,” he said. “If that’s not the intent I’d just be wasting time.”

“The intent off the bill is to ban human cloning,” Fishbach responded. “I think what the doctor was describing in very scientific terms was either you clone a human to make a baby and implant it into a women or you clone a baby to use it in experiments”

She added, “I think what we are trying to do here is to prevent a human from being created for experiments and reproduction.”

Dr. Wagner indicated that that was not quite accurate. “None of us are creating a baby. Once you insert a nucleus in to that oocyte you get an embryo,” he said. “The intent is not to create a baby, the intent is to create an embryo. I think it comes down to what you think an embryo is. We are talking about eight cells here.”

Wagner added that the University of Minnesota currently does not use the SCNT technique and does not create new embryos; instead researchers use embryonic stem cell lines created in different states and countries. He said there was concern, however, that the bill would ban the importation of cells and products created by SCNT in Minnesota and that it would impact the university’s research.

But according to testimony by Andrea Rau of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, much of the bill may not matter because the type of research the group is trying to ban is already illegal.

“It is already not allowed under Minnesota law,” said Rau, citing laws related to “human conceptus.”

“If it’s already unlawful then I don’t see why we need this legislation,” Marty said. “Then this is not to stop a cloned human being, this is to stop research into cures for Parkinsons, ALS and other diseases.”

The University of Minnesota provided legislators with a fact sheet that calls the bill a “law to make stem cell research a crime.” The university also created a website to oppose the bill.

Its author, Sen. Michelle Fischbach, said the penalties for such research under the bill have been reduced from a felony charge to a misdemeanor. Fischbach is the wife of Scott Fischbach, the executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, a group that is working to draft and pass the bill.

The bill passed the committee by a 8-5 vote on Thursday. And on Tuesday, the bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. The House Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety passed it by a voice vote on Tuesday as well.

Minnesota legislators have introduced a bill that would create Minnesota’s first public education campaign about HIV/AIDS. New HIV infections have spiked in Minnesota over the past two years, leading public health organizations to look for ways to curb the epidemic here. SF 466 would direct the Minnesota Department of Health to develop a statewide campaign that provides information both to the general public and distinct communities.

The bill was introduced in the Senate late last week by Sen. Scott Dibble of Minneapolis, Sen. John Marty of Roseville and Sen. Sandy Pappas of St. Paul.

Amy Brugh, public policy director for the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP), said a public health campaign around HIV is needed in Minnesota. “We feel like this legislation is so important,” she said. MAP runs the AIDSLine, which Brugh calls a “one-stop shop” for statewide information about HIV/AIDS. The phone service — coupled with new web-based chat feature — takes thousands of calls each year.

“In conversations with people there’s a lot of misinformation,” Brugh said. “For example, we get a lot of calls about saliva being a risk. It’s not.”

She said people around the state call the AIDSLine thinking they “have frequent HIV risk when there’s no risk.”

But a bigger concern for MAP is that Minnesotans might underestimate their risk for HIV infection. “We are concerned that some people don’t understand that having unprotected sex is risky.”

The latest data from the department of health shows a 25 percent increase in HIV infections in 2009 (data for 2010 is expected to be released this spring). That increase means the number of people who contracted HIV is at a 17-year high, on par with the early 1990s. And a significant number of those new HIV infections were among people under age 25.

Since the epidemic’s beginning in the early 1980s, Minnesota has never instituted a statewide public health campaign.

Brugh noted that such a campaign would help destigmatize HIV.

“We need to reduce stigma surrounding people living with HIV in Minnesota,” she said. “Stigma drives the epidemic as do homophobia and racism.”

Though timely, because of the budget deficit and the current makeup of the Minnesota Legislature, Brugh said the bill is not likely to pass, let alone be heard in committee. But she did say that the legislature has enacted similar programs in the past.

“Current statute funds a public education campaign on fetal alcohol disorder as well as other efforts. There is precedent for public health campaigns in the state,” she said.

And arming Minnesotans with information about HIV could save the state millions of dollars in the long run. Research has suggested that the costs of HIV infection to the health care system in 2006 were $2,100 a month or $618,000 over the lifetime for individuals living with HIV. At times, those costs are born by state-subsidized health programs.

“Investing in HIV infection is a fraction of the costs of treating HIV infection,” said Brugh.

Minnesota Republicans unveiled their “Phase I” plan to reduce Minnesota’s $6.2 billion budget deficit by maintaining unallotment levels of government aid and higher education spending. The plan would direct state agencies to find $200 million in savings. DFL leaders and Mayors RT Rybak and Chris Coleman quickly criticized the plan as hurting the middle class while giving big breaks to corporate CEOs.

The GOP outlined its plan in a statement on Monday.

“We need to prevent automatic spending increases that are included in the state government budget, and passing this budget bill will keep some of state government’s expenditures at current levels,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chair Mary Liz Holberg of Lakeville.

“In light of the large forecasted budget deficit, I believe most cities, counties, and public higher education institutions have been expecting these budget reductions to continue,” said Senate Finance Committee Chair Sen. Claire Robling of Jordan. “This action should not come as a surprise to them or to the majority of legislators who voted for these reductions last year.”

But that prediction rang hollow with many DFLers.

“The Senate Republicans’ proposal is a one-legged stool of cuts only, with no new reform and no new revenue,” Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak said. “We’ve seen this movie before: they would simply continue a deeply misguided policy that passes the State’s fiscal problems onto communities, is directly responsible for driving property taxes higher statewide and has hampered our ability to keep people safe.”

He said that cuts will lead to layoffs of police and firefighters.

“Minneapolis and communities across Minnesota are willing to do their fair share to help solve the State’s budget crisis and put people to work — but over the last eight years, we’ve already done much more than our fair share,” he added. “Minnesota’s taxpayers have a right to expect more out of the Legislature’s new majorities than just more passing the buck.”

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said the plan would create higher taxes for property owners.

“The Republicans at the Capitol are suggesting we do nothing more than continue the failed policies left behind by our previous Governor which is to shift the funding burden for police, fire and public infrastructure to property owners in cities across Minnesota,” he said.

Gov. Mark Dayton said he isn’t interested in partial solutions to the budget deficit.

“I will not agree to piecemeal cuts and partial solutions eliminating the $6.2 billion deficit in the next biennium,” he said. “I will propose a reasonable, balanced and complete budget solution on February 15th, and I ask the legislature to do the same thereafter, with citizen participation through hearings and very careful consideration of the effects of their decisions on people’s lives.”

Senate DFL Caucus Leader Tom Bakk of Cook said the GOP’s plan amounted to tax breaks for corporations and tax increases for the middle class.

It is telling… to note what is included in the first round of budget cuts offered by the Republican majorities: cuts to state colleges and universities, cuts to property tax relief programs, and cuts to health care for working families,” he said. “Despite the Republican rhetoric around ‘reform’ and ‘redesign,’ it’s clear that an all-cuts budget is going to have a dramatic impact on Minnesota families.”

He added, “It also points to the irresponsibility of the Republican proposal to offer millions of dollars in tax breaks to large corporations during these difficult times. The question is: should we really be raising taxes on working families at the same time we’re cutting taxes on out-of-state corporations?”

DFL Sen. John Marty of Roseville echoed that sentiment.

“Just one week ago, the Republicans introduced their top priority, Senate File 1, which contained as much as $200 million in tax cuts for corporations, including corporations based in other states and countries. Remember that many corporations are currently seeing historic profit margins,” he said. “I question the Republicans’ logic, and the fairness, of cutting taxes for corporations while raising taxes on homeowners and renters who are struggling to make ends meet.”

Tim Pawlenty

At a meeting of the Legislature’s Health Care Access Commission, Sen. John Marty questioned Department of Commerce official John Gross about federal funding for the state’s insurance rate reviews, funds that are “virtually automatic,” so long as the state applies for them. But Minnesota missed out on $1 million in compensation for the rate review program — because Gov. Tim Pawlenty didn’t sign the completed application.

“So rather than sign a letter, we gave up a million dollars, which was automatic as I understand it? Virtually automatic? I mean every state that applied got the money? So the department did its work,” said Marty. “The governor just said ‘we don’t want a million dollars’ and we’ll not sign a letter.”

TheUptake has video and transcript of Marty’s questions:

“They are not about respecting families and marriage. They are out preventing other marriages,” he said. “They are the ones that want to impose their will on others. I don’t want to impose gay marriage on anybody. I want people to choose their own partners in life.”

He said that groups like NOM are on the wrong side of history. “They can’t stop loving couples from falling in love. If two women fall in love they can’t stop that,” he said. “They can’t stop them from making a lifelong commitment to each other. They can’t stop them from raising children.”

He added, “They only thing they can do is prevent them from getting the legal recognition that everybody else gets and discriminate against them. And that’s wrong.”

On Friday, WCCO evaluated the ads by NOM and found them to be mostly true, although the group exaggerated some claims and intentionally left out pertinent information, WCCO’s Pat Kessler said.

Here’s Marty’s response to the ads:

And here’s NOM’s original ad:

Bradlee Dean

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, the front group for the punk rock ministry of Bradlee Dean, took his brand of fundamentalist Christianity to a DFL gubernatorial meet-and-greet several weeks ago to confront Sen. John Marty about his support for “sin” and homosexuals. Dean and fellow group frontman Jake McMillian repeatedly asked Marty about sodomy.

“In Minnesota, there is something called the sodomy law. It governed all 50 states for quite some time. As a matter of fact, you can go to prison for the act of sodomy,” said McMillian. “Now we are debating a marriage amendment between homosexual couples, male with male which has never happened in the history of civilization, but yet we are overlooking a statute that is very valid called the sodomy law in Minnesota.”

Minnesota’s sodomy law was struck down as unconstitutional by the Minnesota Supreme Court in 2001, and by the United States Supreme Court in 2003. Repeated requests for comment by the Minnesota Independent to Dean and McMillian on this issue were not returned.

“I travel around to high schools all around the country and kids are often puzzled and confused by shifting standards,” said McMillian. “I see lawmakers and I’ll use you as an example… How can a man legislate that which is a solid foundation? As we travel across the nation, youth are given this perplexity. And now kids are asking ‘why do I have two dads, this makes no sense?’ Rosie O’Donnell is a great example.”

He continued, “It just makes no sense according to laws of nature or revealed law, the bible, or government law.”

Marty gave the group his take on same-sex marriage and equality under the law.

“In terms of changing the law, yeah, that’s what I do at the Capitol. If a same-sex couple wishes to make a life-long commitment, I want to honor that and I want to respect that,” he said. “The constitution that our servicepeople fought for, they didn’t fight to keep all of the laws the same. We have to change as times change in society.”

Marty continued, “If a couple loves each other let them decide. I can’t think of anything more intrusive than a government telling a church you must marry them or you can’t marry them.”

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Part 2: