Tag Archives: campaign finance

MAINE: Ethics Commission Extends Deadline For NOM To Disclose Donors

Via the Bangor Daily News: The Maine Ethics Commission gave the National Organization for Marriage a reprieve Wednesday on disclosing the donor list from its 2009 campaign against same-sex marriage in Maine. But the five-person commission did not back down on its demand for the national organization to pay a $50,250 fine for violating the state’s campaign finance and disclosure …

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MAINE: NOM Files Campaign Finance Complaints Against HRC And Task Force

Via the Portland Press Herald: The National Organization for Marriage, the nation’s leading opponent of gay marriage, has filed two retaliatory complaints claiming that its adversaries violated Maine election laws more than four years ago. The complaints against the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force stem from campaign activity in the 2009 referendum over Maine’s …

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NOM Has The Money Laundering Sadz

“NOM vigorously denies that it violated any disclosure laws during the 2009 campaign opposing same-sex marriage. We worked with legal counsel to understand the law, and we followed that advice. The Commission staff has drawn improper inferences from the circumstances of the campaign environment that they wrongly interpret as meaning that if someone gave to NOM somehow they designated their …

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MAINE: Ethics Committee Finds NOM Guilty, Eastman Says “We Won’t Pay Fine”

UPDATE: The Portland Press Herald reports. NOM executives, two of whom were present for the hearing, vowed to fight the ruling and protect the anonymity of the organization’s donors. John Eastman, the attorney and board chairman for NOM, said revealing the donors would put them at risk of threats and harassment while hindering the organization’s ability to raise money. Eastman …

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Editorial Of The Day

From the Bangor Daily News: The results of the commission’s investigation might seem irrelevant now, given that five years have passed — because the commission faced two lawsuits from NOM, both of which NOM lost — and the issue of same-sex marriage is largely settled in Maine. But the principle remains, and the precedent is important. It’s quite likely the …

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NOM Loses Again, Ninth Circuit Court Upholds Prop 8 Donor Disclosure Law

NOM has lost again. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the California law which requires that names of donors to public ballot measures be made public. Sponsors of Proposition 8, the now-overturned initiative allowing only opposite-sex couples to marry in the state, complied with the disclosure law during the 2008 campaign and said some …

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HomoQuotable – Fred Karger

“After nearly five years of Brian Brown and his NOM fighting in court against the investigation that I got launched against them in Maine, the verdict is in and NOM is guilty of numerous counts of election fraud. Ten days after I filed my complaint against NOM in Maine back in 2009, I was subpoenaed by NOM’s high-priced attorneys in …

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Freep This Maine Poll

Just below the fold on the right. (Tipped by JMG reader Greg)

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NOM Has The Maine Sadz

“NOM strongly denies the findings of the staff report in Maine. We did not raise funds designated for the Maine campaign and fully complied with Maine law. The staff has ignored uncontested sworn evidence from donors that we did not designate any contributions for the referendum effort and instead has focused on circumstantial evidence to support its conclusion when a …

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MAINE: Ethics Investigators Recommend NOM Be Fined $50K For Cloaking Donors

Via the Bangor Daily News: Maine ethics investigators are recommending more than $50,000 in fines for a national anti-gay-marriage organization for failing to register and disclose its activities in Maine’s 2009 same-sex marriage referendum. That year, an effort to legalize same-sex marriage — approved by the Legislature and signed by then-Gov. John Baldacci — was repealed at the ballot box …

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TRAILER: Citizen Koch

Clip description: In this searing exposé on the state of democracy in America and the fracturing of the Republican Party, Academy Award®-nominated directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water; co-producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 & Bowling for Columbine) follow the money behind the rise of the Tea Party. CITIZEN KOCH investigates the impact of unlimited, anonymous spending by corporations …

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Mark Fiore: Sheldon Adelson’s Menagerie

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SCOTUS Rules That Limits On Total Campaign Donations Are Unconstitutional

The US Supreme Court today ruled that limits on total individual campaign donations are unconstitutional, effectively giving the nation’s mega-wealthy even more power over election results. The ruling comes in the long-festering McCutcheon Vs Federal Elections Commission case. The justices ruled 5-4, in a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that limits on the total amount of money donors …

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Teabagger US Rep. Paul Broun Flees Reporter Asking About Campaign Finance

Tea Party hero Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) made headlines in 2012 when he declared that evolution is “a lie from the pit of hell” and that the earth is only 9000 years old. Today a reporter tried to ask Broun why he’s paying Michele Bachmann’s former top aide over $33K to train him in “rhetorical skills.” Because when you want …

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MINNESOTA: Pro-Marriage Legislators Are Seeing Larger Campaign Donations

Brian Brown repeatedly warns legislators that they will be punished for supporting same-sex marriage. That hasn’t happened in Minnesota. Minnesota legislators who took a political risk in voting in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage last year have posted big campaign finance hauls, according to reports made public Saturday. The House members whose 2013 votes were contrary to most in their …

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GOP Rep. Michael Grimm (NY) Threatens Reporter: I Could Break You In Half

Earlier today Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY made positive news when he became the sixth Republican member of the House to co-sponsor ENDA. Grimm’s move won him accolades from openly gay Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), the bill’s author. But tonight Grimm dominated the post-SOTU Twitterverse for threatening to assault a NY1 reporter who dared to ask him about his burgeoning campaign …

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NEW YORK: Wingnut Dinesh D’Souza Indicted For Campaign Finance Fraud

Christian activist and Breitbart hero Dinesh D’Souza, whose 2012 movie 2016: Obama’s America grossed $33M, has been indicted on federal charges of campaign finance fraud. D’Souza, an author and the former president of King’s College, is accused of “causing $20,000 in illegal campaign contributions to be made to a candidate for the U.S. Senate in calendar year 2012,” according to …

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HomoQuotable – Fred Karger

“In a August 22 blog post the National Organization of Marriage wrote, ‘What’s the best way to weaken and silence those you disagree with? Intimidation and threats, of course.’ That statement also went into a NOM email blast to its claimed list of 500,000. NOM and its president, Brian Brown, have been attacking me ever since my sworn complaint against …

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IOWA: Brian Brown Loses Again, State Won’t Remove Campaign Investigator

Last week NOM’s Brian Brown launched a screaming complaint campaign against the Iowa official assigned to investigate Fred Karger’s complaint that they violated campaign finance rules. This just in from Karger: The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board will not remove its executive director from an investigation into whether the National Organization for Marriage violated state law by not disclosing …

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NOM Calls For Removal Of Iowa Official

“The people of Iowa are entitled to the highest standards of ethical conduct and independence from the state’s top ethics officer, but Megan Tooker has shown herself to be biased and incredibly unprofessional in her handling of the complaint against NOM. Ms. Tooker worked for one of the justices we helped remove from office in 2010 and which is the …

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