State ethics investigators recommend national anti-gay-marriage group be fined $50,250
Source: Bangor Daily News
AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine ethics investigators are recommending by far the largest campaign finance fine in state history be levied against a national anti-gay-marriage organization for failing to register and disclose its activities in Maine’s 2009 same-sex marriage referendum.
The Maine Ethics Commission will consider whether to impose the $50,250 fine at its May 28 meeting. It would be the largest fine of its kind ever imposed by the ethics board. If the commission accepts the investigators’ recommendation, the group would also be forced to disclose its donors for the first time.
In 2009, an effort to legalize same-sex marriage — approved by the Legislature and signed by then-Gov. John Baldacci — was repealed at the ballot box with 53 percent of the vote.
National Organization for Marriage, based in Washington, D.C., was the largest contributor to the ’09 anti-gay-marriage campaign, and dumped roughly $2 million into the state. That money was integral in defeating the fledgling marriage equality law.
<more>
Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2014/05/19/politics/state-ethics-investigators-recommend-national-anti-gay-marriage-group-be-fined-50250/
= new reply since forum marked as read
