| The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has petitioned the Maine Ethics Commission to stay their investigation into NOM's campaign finances during last years Question 1 contest. At issue is whether NOM violated Maine election law; I wrote about it here and here.
The hearing is this morning, and from the Commissions [agenda http://bit.ly/7nfurg}:
The National Organization for Marriage has objected to the Commission's investigative requests for documents and information. The organization requests a stay of the investigation until the federal courts have reached a final decision on its constitutional challenge to the ballot question reporting statute.
Earlier this week, Keith Shortall had a story on Maine Things Considered about whether last week's Supreme Court's election ruling could bolster part of Maine's law:
Maine's laws don't apply any such spending restrictions to these groups, and so was not directly affected. Except, says Jonathan Wayne of the Maine Ethics Commission, for one possible area of state election law.
"What the court decided is that if corporations or labor unions want to spend money independently of candidates to influence their elections, they can, but they have to file disclosure statements with the federal government, stating that they spent "x" numbers of dollars on "x" date in support or against the candidates," he says.
And, says Wayne, that might actually provide some legal support for Maine's law, which requires that certain campaign spending reports be filed in the weeks before an election. "The Maine election law requires independent groups that are spending money in the 35 days before the general election to file reports if they mention candidates, and there's a Maine Clean Elections Candidate in the race. So that's one of the statutes that NOM is challenging."
NOM is the National Organization for Marriage, a Washington D.C.-based group that was a major funder behind the campaign to overturn Maine's same sex-marriage law this past November. NOM has so far refused to file spending reports with the Ethics Commission, but according to the PAC, Stand for Marriage Maine, it received nearly two-thirds of its funding -- more than $1.9 million -- from NOM.
We'll continue to follow this story.
Update: By a 4 to 1 ruling (Francis Marsano opposed), the Ethics Commission voted to deny the request to stay the investigation. The vote was not without interest, as when the Commission voted to investigate NOM three votes to two, Marsano was one of those that voted to investigate, and Edward Youngblood, who initially voted against investigating, now voting against the stay.
Great news.
Update: Audio of the hearing is now available here. There is no time marks on it, but the NOM case begins about 1/3 of the way in. |
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