Marriage Amendment: Beware of lobby groups bearing secrets

Counterpoint

'Minnesota for Marriage" is an organization of well-funded political operatives trying to convince Minnesotans to amend our state Constitution to prohibit marriage in same-sex families.

Despite the fears raised by the group's chairman, John Helmberger, in a recent commentary ("Campaign Finance Board oversteps its authority," Oct. 14), Minnesota for Marriage is a perfect example of why the public deserves information about who is funding political campaigns.

On its website, Minnesota for Marriage lists three organizations funding its political operations: the Minnesota Family Council, the Minnesota Catholic Conference and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

The Minnesota Family Council and NOM have a long history of trying to keep the public in the dark about who is funding their efforts. In 2010, the groups spent more than $700,000 to influence the outcome of the campaign for governor.

Yet neither of them has filed a single report disclosing who funded their activities. Now these organizations are trying again to skirt Minnesota's disclosure law so they can hide in the shadows.

In 2010, the Minnesota Legislature passed a law requiring corporations to disclose money they spend to influence our elections.

The disclosure law required that all organizations disclose who gave them money to influence voters, but also permitted them to keep confidential small donors and donations made for nonpolitical purposes.

The Campaign Finance Board recently applied those same rules to corporations influencing the constitutional-amendment campaign, recognizing the Legislature's intent to provide information to voters about who is trying to influence their vote.

The Legislature wrote the law that way, and the Campaign Finance Board is following the law.

In the last several weeks, Minnesota for Marriage has publicly announced its refusal to follow these campaign-finance rules.

It argues that innocent donors might be targeted by groups supporting same-sex families, and that hiding political donations is protected by the First Amendment. NOM (the national group funding Minnesota for Marriage) has lawsuits going in six states challenging disclosure laws.

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.

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.

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