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

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.”

Minnesota campaign finance board requires disclosure
In 2010, the Minnesota Legislature unanimously passed, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed into law, legislation that outlined disclosure requirements in the wake of the United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United that gave corporations the right to make expenditures in political campaigns, including ballot initiatives. Minnesota had previously banned corporate involvement in elections, and the state needed a new set of requirements.

Earlier this month, the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board released guidance for organizations working to gain support or opposition to ballot measures on how to disclose contributions and which donors should be disclosed.

In the Star Tribune on Friday, John Helmberger, chair of Minnesota for Marriage and CEO of the Minnesota Family Council, blasted the campaign finance board rules saying they would chill the free speech of churches.

“Nobody disagrees that voters are entitled to know who contributes to the marriage campaign. But the changes the Campaign Finance Board proposes are not authorized by law and would mislead the public, resulting in the disclosure of people who did not contribute to the campaign,” Helmberger wrote.

Minnesota for Marriage refuses to disclose
Minnesota for Marriage says it will not comply with the board’s requirements in the run-up to the 2012 election.

“Nobody disagrees that voters are entitled to know who contributes to the marriage campaign,” Helmberger wrote in Friday’s opinion piece, but the group was singing a different tune earlier this year.

At a public hearing by the campaign finance board involving rules regarding ballot initiatives, representatives of NOM and the Minnesota Family Council argued against any disclosures.

“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,” said Tom Prichard of the Family Council. “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.”

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

Minnesota for Marriage sent an email to supporters on Monday claiming that the disclosure rules—which apply to both sides—were an attack on religious people.

The email title read, “Star Tribune Escalates Attack on Churches and Religious People” in reference to a Star Tribune editorial earlier this month in support of the campaign finance rules.

“Clearly, this is a blatant attempt to intimidate churches and other groups that take a stand for marriage and silence discussion of the marriage amendment; a clear violation of religious freedom and free speech,” wrote Helmberger. “Now that the marriage amendment has qualified for the ballot, the board is all of a sudden trying to change the rules of the game despite the fact there has been no change in state disclosure laws.”

Raising the specter of persecution
One of Helmberger’s main arguments is that if it’s required to disclose its donors, members of the LGBT community will attack those donors.

“Regrettably, some gay-marriage activists have seen that intimidation can be an effective campaign tactic, and it has become standard fare in any marriage campaign,” he wrote. “Evidence in various court proceedings document case after case of harassment—phone calls at home and work, calls and e-mails to employers, boycotts of someone’s employer, calls to clients, etc.”

But on Monday, a federal court in Washington found that claims by NOM, a member of Minnesota for Marriage, that it’s donors were harassed to be without merit. In that case, Doe v. Reed, NOM argued it didn’t have to disclose signers of a referendum petition for fear that people who sign the petition would be subject to harassment and violence. The court strongly disagreed:

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. This is a quite different situation than the progeny of cases providing an as-applied exemption wherein the government was actually involved in carrying out the harassment, which was historic, pervasive, and documented. To that end, the evidence supplied by Doe purporting to be the best set of experiences of threats, harassment, or reprisals suffered or reasonably likely to be suffered by R-71 signers cannot be characterized as “serious and widespread.”

Setting up for a lawsuit
Transparency groups like Common Cause say that Minnesota for Marriage’s protestations are likely laying the groundwork for a lawsuit challenging the disclosure rules. NOM has filed suit in a half dozen states to try to shield its donors in ballot initiatives, elections, and lobbying efforts. It has yet to succeed.

“This is just another attempt to strike down Minnesota disclosure law,” said Mike Dean. “NOM has a long history of unsuccessfully challenging disclosure laws across the country.”

Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, echoed Dean’s sentiments in his own opinion column in the Star Tribune.

“Given these groups’ actual record of avoiding disclosure and suing to block disclosure laws, the concern expressed by Helmberger about innocent small donors is an obvious smokescreen. The Minnesota rules they challenge already protect small donors, and protect donations made without an earmark for political spending,” Winkler wrote. “Here’s a good rule of thumb: Never trust a well-funded group hiring lawyers to hide information from the public. Especially if their only argument is the need to protect the privacy of donors whose donations are already safely hidden.”

The law Winkler refers to was a campaign finance bill passed by the Minnesota Legislature and signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

Dean wondered why groups like Minnesota for Marriage wanted to shield their donors from disclosure.

“Being part of a democracy is about standing up for what you believe in, not cowering in the bushes because you are afraid of what others will think. The real question is, what do these groups have to hide?”

Open government advocates say current regulations inadequate
Contrary to Helmberger’s claims, a churchgoer’s donation would likely never be reported to any government entity as long as her church never asked her to specifically contribute to the church’s efforts to pass the amendment.

For transparency groups like Common Cause Minnesota, that’s a problem.

“The Campaign Finance Board, against Common Cause’s advice, is actually making it easier for groups to avoid disclosure,” Common Cause’s Mike Dean told the Minnesota Independent. “They have said that those groups only need to disclose if they make an explicit request of financial support for the constitutional amendment.”

Dean said the campaign finance board watered down a statute passed in 2010 that called for stringent disclosure rules. In a letter to the board earlier this month, the group argued that the “express” and “implied” request scenarios were confusing and unnecessary and gave groups a loophole to get out of disclosing contributions.

“Instead of requiring organizations to comply with this lengthy and multi-pronged definition, the board could simply require disclosure of contributions made in response to any solicitation that mentions a ballot question—end of story,” Common Cause wrote. “The current definition, with its discussion of ‘express’ and ‘implied’ requests, is unnecessarily confusing and complicated. Moreover, the fact that the board believes it is obligated to include such a distinction suggests that the Board is taking a far more conservative approach to disclosure than is required or warranted.”

Dean said the board’s current rules would “open up an enormous and unnecessary loophole in Minnesota law.”

“Experience under comparable federal rules has shown that sophisticated donors are able to exploit such loopholes to avoid the transparency that is necessary for a well-informed democracy,” Dean said.

A reporter from the Minnesota Independent will be live tweeting the debate between a prominent opponent and supporter of the constitutional anti-gay marriage amendment Thursday afternoon.

The debate involves Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and Dale Carpenter, University of Minnesota professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law. It goes from 4-5 p.m. and is sponsored by the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy.

Minnesotans will vote on a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as only between one man and one woman in November 2012. Same-sex marriage is already illegal in Minnesota.

The debate will be tweeted from our @MnIndyLive account, which from now on will only be used for live events or extending our coverage with observations from our reporters or links to articles by other Minnesota media venues. You can join us on this page or on Twitter (and feel free to chime in, we’ll re-tweet you). To receive updates on all our stories throughout the day, please follow @MnIndy on Twitter. A full story about the debate will appear on the site tomorrow.

A coalition of groups working to convince voters to pass a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage said on Tuesday that it would not follow new rules being proposed by the Minnesota campaign finance board, which watchdog groups say would violate the law.

Minnesota for Marriage is a partnership between the Minnesota Family Council, the Minnesota Catholic Conference and the National Organization for Marriage.

Last week, the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board announced it was considering updating its rules to close loopholes in the ballot initiative’s reporting requirements. The board released guidance to outside groups that want to donate to ballot campaigns such as Minnesota for Marriage which supports the amendment or Minnesotans United for All Families which opposes the amendment, and spelled out how those donations would be disclosed.

The guidance would heighten public disclosure around campaign spending and will be debated before the board this week.

On Tuesday, Minnesota for Marriage cried foul and said it would only do what it had planned to in the past, calling the new guidance “illegal.”

“Minnesota for Marriage will disclose all donations we receive, as well as all expenditures that we make, consistent with longstanding Minnesota law,” said John Helmberger, MFM’s chairman. “However, what [campaign finance board] bureaucrats are attempting to do goes well beyond what the law requires, substituting themselves for the Legislature in an illegal attempt to compel disclosure of information not required by law. We oppose such illegal regulations.”

The National Organization for Marriage, which is a part of Minnesota for Marriage, has opposed regulations of its campaign activity in almost every state it has operated in. And in many of those states, the organization has lost its case.

“The CFB cannot illegally force us to report information the law does not require,” said Brian Brown, president of NOM.

In a letter to the board, NOM accused the board of singling it out for special treatment.

“[I]t is apparent that NOM is a singular target of the Board’s proposed new reporting and disclosure regime,” NOM wrote. “The deliberate targeting by the government of a particular citizens organization such as NOM is a violation of NOM’s First Amendment rights protecting it from such government assault.”

NOM is demanding all documentation related to NOM at the campaign finance board.

Tom Prichard of the Minnesota Family Council, another member of Minnesota for Marriage, recently told the campaign finance board that he thinks Minnesota for Marriage should not have to disclose any of the contributions it takes in or the people or entities that donate.

Common Cause Minnesota saw Minnesota for Marriage’s announcement as the prelude to a lawsuit. NOM has filed lawsuit in a half dozen states including Iowa, Maine and California where judges have upheld those states’ campaign disclosure laws.

“Minnesota has become ground zero for a national fight over whether the public should know who is behind political spending,” said Mike Dean, Executive Director of Common Cause Minnesota. “Last year, the legislature and governor required that all political spending by independent expenditure groups and groups supporting constitutional amendments be disclosed.”

He said that Minnesota for Marriage “announced their intention to violate this very provision of Minnesota’s disclosure law.”

“The Supreme Court has made it clear that the public has a right to know who is behind political spending during an election,” said Dean. “This attack on Minnesota’s disclosure law is [an] attack on Minnesota’s desire for fair and open elections.”

Source: Zroberts, Flickr

Minnesota for Marriage, a coalition working to convince Minnesotans to vote for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, has hit the media saying that their group are “underdogs” in the marriage amendment battle and that they will be greatly outspent.

But according to public records, members of the pro-amendment coalition, including the Minnesota Family Council and the Minnesota Catholic Conference, have greatly outspent LGBT groups in the five years of lobbying for the amendment.

Minnesota for Marriage claims fundraising disadvantage
Each member of the coalition supporting the amendment has claimed underdog status in recent months.

Chuck Darrell, communications director for Minnesota for Marriage, told the St. Cloud Times earlier this month that coalition members “expect to be outspent.”

Darrell elaborated in an August interview with Pastor Brad Brandon on KKMS.

“One of the problems we see is that the other side through Hollywood connections and everything else under the sun are going to raise a ton of money. I don’t think we can outraise them,” Darrell said. ”It’s absolutely important that people get involved because the only way to counter the money that is going to be spent on the other side.”

John Helmberger, CEO of the Minnesota Family Council and chair of Minnesota for Marriage sent an email to supporters several weeks ago warning that “Hollywood” and “centers of popular culture” would be outspending the pro-amendment campaign.

The Minnesota Catholic Conference (MCC), another member of the Minnesota for Marriage coalition, also warned that they would be outspent.

“Will the campaign be easy? No. We will be vastly outspent and there will be many cultural forces working against us,” the group wrote on its blog. ”They will try to make us think that we are swimming against the tide of history. They will call us names for defending the important institution of marriage. But, we must stand together.”

Amendment supporters spent three times as much through PACs
In the previous five years, groups pushing for the marriage amendment spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect sympathetic legislators. 

According to documents filed with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, Minnesota for Marriage spent $341,928 from its political action committee (PAC) promoting the ballot measure in Minnesota since 2005.

OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, spent $95,574 from its PAC on LGBT issues, including opposition to the amendment since 2005. Project 515, which has lobbied to change the 515 Minnesota laws that discriminate against same-sex couples spent $17,850 from its PAC since they were founded in 2008.

The pro-LGBT groups together spent just $115,424, or about one-third of what Minnesota for Marriage spent.

Minnesota for Marriage groups spent $1.12 million on lobbying
All sides of the debate have spent big money lobbying the legislature as well. While the campaign finance board’s lobbying summaries don’t list the amounts of money spent on specific issues, they do provide annual estimates of lobbying expenditures.

Outfront spent $496,658 since 2005 on a range of issues including anti-bullying laws and domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples, but also in opposition to the amendment. In addition, Project 515 lobbied for bills that would equalize Minnesota laws for same-sex couples including end of life matters and hospital visitation. Together the two group spent a sizable amount of money: $616,658.

Since 2005, the Minnesota Family Council has spent $194,000 on lobbying. The group has lobbied heavily in favor of the amendment but also has lobbied in opposition to anti-bullying laws, gambling, medical marijuana, Sunday alcohol sales and abortion rights.

Minnesota for Marriage, an organization exclusively dedicated to the marriage amendment, spent $296,411. Focus on the Family came to Minnesota to lobby for the amendment as well and spent $32,538.

Between the three groups, spending was $522,949. When you add in the lobbying of the Minnesota Catholic Conference ($600,000 since 2005), that number rises to $1,122,949.

Catholic Church and National Organization for Marriage flexed ad muscle
In the advertising game, Minnesota for Marriage and the Catholic church blew LGBT groups out of the water.

During the 2010 elections, the D.C.-based National Organization for Marriage in conjunction with the Minnesota Family Council spent $709,000 on ads urging Minnesotans to support gubernatorial candidates that support the amendment banning same-sex marriage. And the Catholic Church in Minnesota spent $1.6 million on a DVD campaign just before the 2010 election that urged Catholic voters to support candidates that oppose same-sex marriage.

That 2010 ad total, $2.3 million, out-paced LGBT equality groups who spent $0 on ad campaigns during the 2010 election.

All told, the pro-amendment forces have spent $3.7 million over the last 5 years according to publicly available records. Those forces that oppose the amendment spent $740,000.

Seven years ago the new head of the National Organization for Marriage, John Eastman, testified at a House impeachment hearing in Denver called by then-first-term-Rep. Greg Brophy.

The staunch social conservative lawmaker from Wray, Colo., drew national attention when he targeted Denver Judge John Coughlin as an “activist judge” who took it upon himself to make pro-gay laws from the bench.

Eastman, a California professor who had earlier filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Boy Scouts could exclude gay troop leaders, was one of two legal experts Brophy brought in to testify against Coughlin. The other expert, Steven Fitschen, came from Christian-right evangelist Pat Robertson’s National Legal Foundation in Virginia.

As journalists covering the hearing pointed out, although Coughlin was ostensibly being placed under the House spotlight for judicial overreaching, the real issue was gay rights.

“Coughlin has been on the bench nearly 25 years. He’s been re-elected to the bench by voters. He’s been given high marks by a state judicial review commission,” the Denver Post reported. “At the hearing, three private lawyers—including a former Republican state representative—testified to his competence. So did an ex-chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, two other former judges and  a prosecutor. [But] Brophy says Coughlin must be impeached for malfeasance for a single decision that tried to keep a little girl from being taught to hate a woman who helped raise her.”

The hearing stemmed from Coughlin’s decision in a custody dispute between a lesbian couple. One of the women, Cheryl Clark, adopted a child and shared parental rights with her partner, Elsey McLeod, but then Clark converted to Christianity, renounced homosexuality, and sought to deny parental rights to McLeod. Even though gay couples could not marry then as now in Colorado and so McLeod technically had no rights, Coughlin granted joint custody to the moms and ruled that the child should be guarded against homophobic church teachings.

Eastman argued the matter was “a pure question of law” and that McLeod was entitled to nothing in the dispute because she had no legal standing as a parent in Colorado. According to reports, he added that “giving McLeod any consideration in the case would be a violation of Clark’s religious freedom.” He warned the committee in passing that, in Canada, “there’s a move afoot to define reading of the Bible as a hate crime because it is anti-homosexual.”

Republicans Gov. Bill Owens and Senate President John Andrews opposed Brophy’s resolution. In the end, it was voted down eight to three. Brophy said he was trying to send a message to judges around the country and that he thought he had succeeded. Committee chairwoman Rep. Lynn Hefley, R-Colorado Springs, however, said Brophy and his two witnesses had failed to persuade.

“I think, quite frankly, that [Coughlin] acted with compassion,” she said. “I don’t see this rising to the level of impeachment.”

That was then. The momentum has been mostly swinging in favor of “compassion” in the years since, in the public square and in legislatures and courts across the land.

Brian Brown, president of NOM, on Thursday signaled at the shifting terrain of the gay debate when he explained his group would be replacing passionate antigay activist and NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher with law professor Eastman. Brown touted Eastman’s legal credentials.

“[Eastman] is one of America’s foremost constitutional scholars and has distinguished himself as a fierce advocate for families and religious liberty. As a legal scholar, he has participated in dozens of cases before our nation’s highest courts, including the United States Supreme Court. When important constitutional principles are on the line, people frequently turn to John Eastman to advocate a conservative, pro-family position.”