Fred Karger's jaw literally dropped as he watched the state ethics committee chalk up a 3-2 vote in favor of investigating the National Organization for Marriage fundraising activities that have pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign to repeal Maine's gay marriage law.
Only hours before the commission's vote, the commission's staff had announced that it did not feel there was enough evidence to warrant an investigation lodged by Karger's group, Californians Against Hate.
"I applaud the commissioners here for having the courage to stand up to the army of lawyers that they bring with them, and to do the right thing," Karger said.
Karger maintains that the National Organization for Marriage should register as political action committee in Maine and is circumventing state law by not reporting the names of many donors to Stand for Marriage Maine, which is leading the push for a people's veto referendum of Maine's gay marriage law.
Karger says it's important for all organizations to conform to election laws and he says that the National Organization for Marriage has an established record of non-compliance throughout the country.
"And the National Organization for Marriage is so aloof they have refused to comply with election laws in many states, and refused to turn over their financial records, until this morning," Karger said. "So even in spite of this commission hearing, with a recommendation not to investigate, they still felt compelled to finally release their 2007 returns, two years late, and their 2008 returns. I think the commission's courage today to investigate the organization will prove that they are some financial irregularities."
"We've complied with the law, we've obeyed the law, and this investigation is nothing more than an attempt to harrass and intimidate those of us who believe in this core truth, that marriage is the union of a man and a woman," said Brian Brown, the Executive Director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for Marriage, which he says is 100 percent in compliance with state and national election laws.
Brown says his group asks for donations nationally without designating them for specific campaigns, so it does not need to
report contributors' names. He says the group's efforts to pass Question 1 is consistent with other campaigns.
"We hope states around the country, whether it's through the referendum process, or whether it's through the legislative process -- there's a lot of different fights going on right now -- and so this is one of the things that of course our supporters would expect us to do and we've recorded all our donations to the Stand for Marriage Maine PAC," Brown said. "And again, we expect that this will be found that the complaint is frivolous and that we've done nothing wrong."
Marc Mutty, chairman of the Stand for Marriage Maine effort, says he was more than a little surprised by the commission's vote by two Democrats and one Republican on the panel that overturned the commission's staff recommendation. "It does feel a little bit peculiar that the commissioners would rule in opposition to the recommendations of their own staff," Mutty says.
Just before the vote, commissioner Walter McKee said he'd seen some large magazine ads by the National Organization for Marriage that clearly targeted Maine's same-sex marriage law. Mckee said the scope of that effort to channel money into Maine convinced him that an investigation was appropriate.
"How we vote is one thing, but authorizing an investigation in circumstances like this I think is entirely appropriate," McKee says. "And I know the staff has indicated that it's a circumstantial situation -- that's what happens, it's probably sometimes the best that you can do. But ultimately the investigation will determine whether this is just all smoke and mirrors or whether there's something behind it. It looks to me like there's something here at least that we should look into.
But commission chairman Michael Friedman, an independent on the panel, remained unconvinced and was skeptical over the timing of the complaint.
"I can certainly understand the passion that's generated on both sides. However, I'm always a little suspect when these requests for investigations are made so closely to an election process, because we all know that it generates a great deal of publicity, pro and con, to whichever party is on the hot seat," Friedman said.
Other than fodder for campaign spin by both sides in the debate, the commission's decision will have no impact on the actual gay marriage vote in Maine, since the panel is not slated to meet again to discuss the investigation until 16 days after the Nov. 3 election.