Minnesota State Board: Anti-LGBT Group May Exploit Loophole To Evade Disclosure

The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board ruled last week that the Minnesota Family Council, an anti-LGBT group spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of a state marriage inequality constitutional amendment, need not disclose its donors because its “major purpose” does not qualify it as a “political committee.”

In their ruling dismissing a complaint by Common Cause Minnesota, the board said:

Minnesota statutes allow the association to allocate the amount of general treasury money used to promote or defeat a ballot question among donors to the association’s general treasury. The association is required to itemize only those donors who, based on the allocation, contributed $1,000 or more of the general treasury money used to promote or defeat a ballot question. The allocation and itemization threshold provisions used together provide a means by which an association may limit or, in some cases, entirely avoid itemized donor disclosure.