1642
(1 vote, average 3.00 out of 5)
Written by Lisa Neff, Staff writer
Oct 6, 2010
A federal court in Rhode Island Oct. 1 dismissed a suit from the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, which was to skirt campaign finance laws that require disclosure of expenditures and compliance with spending limits.
Judge Mary M. Lisi dismissed NOM’s complaint because it violated federal litigation rules. She found that “the factual allegations in the complaint are buried in … conclusory and argumentative passages” and that it “places an unjustified burden on the court and the (state) to respond to it because they are forced to ferret out the relevant material from a mass of verbiage.” The court gave NOM a week to file an amended complaint.
NOM wants to invest in the Rhode Island gubernatorial race, as well as pump money into the Rhode Island General Assembly campaigns of candidates who oppose gay marriage rights. However, the organization maintains that it should not be treated as a political action committee.
NOM recently lost a similar case in Minnesota and remains under investigation for alleged campaign finance violations in Maine, where the organization led a successful campaign against marriage for same-sex couples.
In the Minnesota case, U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank wrote, “The voting public has an interest in knowing who is speaking about a candidate … and knowing the sources of election-related spending. …. Invalidating the election laws at issue here would likely result in corporations (and organizations) making independent expenditures without any reporting or disclosure on the eve of the upcoming general election on November 2, 2010.”
With the filing of the new suit in Rhode Island, two LGBT civil rights groups – the Human Rights Campaign and the Courage Campaign – have partnered to document NOM’s financiers and beneficiaries.
“NOM feels like they have something to hide,” said Human Rights Campaign vice president Fred Sainz. “In yet another state, NOM is trying to eviscerate the fair and open process that governs election spending in this country.”
HRC and CC partnered to create NOMexposed.org, an interactive website focusing on the organization’s origins, activities and associations with the Catholic and Mormon churches.
“We will be watching the campaign trail and documenting NOM’s political buys and bedfellows,” said HRC president Joe Solmonese. “We will connect the dots for voters.”
NOM’s Minnesota campaign activity – not detailed to the state in campaign finance documents – has included TV and radio ads targeting pro-equality candidates and a mailer targeting a gay Republican.
“What we are seeing in Minnesota and increasingly across the country is a covert plan by NOM to evade and eviscerate public disclosure laws,” Sainz said. “Enough is enough.”
HRC estimates NOM’s resources at $10 million.
