Maine’s top court rules national same-sex marriage foe must reveal donors
Source: Bangor Daily News
AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday that the National Organization for Marriage must disclose its donor list in connection with the group’s support of a people’s veto of Maine’s 2009 same-sex marriage law.
The National Organization for Marriage has already paid a record-breaking fine of $50,250 to the Maine Ethics Commission and registered as a ballot question committee but continues to resist revealing its national donor list. The organization had requested a stay on the release of that list while its case against the ethics commission is pending in the Law Court, but Tuesday’s decision essentially denies that request.
The conflict between the National Organization for Marriage and the ethics commission dates back to October 2009 when the commission launched an investigation of the group’s role in the campaign after a complaint from a California activist who argued that the National Organization for Marriage should have been required to register as a ballot question committee. Any group that spends more than $5,000 to influence a referendum in Maine is required to register as a ballot question committee and as such, must reveal the identities of its donors.
The National Organization for Marriage funnelled more than $2 million to a political action committee called Stand for Marriage Maine, which represented 64 percent of the PAC’s spending in the referendum, which resulted in the repeal of the same-sex marriage law enacted by the Legislature and Democratic Gov. John Baldacci. Same-sex marriage was reinstated in Maine in another referendum in 2012.
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Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2015/08/04/politics/maines-top-court-rules-national-same-sex-marriage-foe-must-reveal-donors/
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