As Mike Gronstal files for reelection, National Organization for Marriage returns to Iowa capitol Tuesday, March 20 to intimidate him at rally; MN and ME investigating NOM campaign disclosure violations

Brian Brown, National Organization for Marriage

On Tuesday, March 20th, at 9 am, the Family Leader, NOM and CatholicVote.org, will hold a rally on the first floor of the Iowa Capitol Building.
     Brian Brown of NOM and Bob Vander Plaats of the Iowa Family Leader will attend the rally.
     The event occurs as Gronstal begins his senate reelection campaign and two states ramp up their investigations of campaign disclosure violations by the National Organization for Marriage. Kevin Nix, writing in Nom Exposed, wrote:

Gronstal with wife, Connie

With the Minnesota election board’s decision to pursue an investigation into Minnesota for Marriage, the umbrella group co-founded by the National Organization for Marriage, taking up all the oxygen, let’s not forget NOM has been under investigation by the Maine Ethics Commission.

     NOM remains under investigation by the Maine Ethics Commission for failing to register with the state as a ballot question committee and refusing to disclose the donors to its campaign to overturn Maine’s marriage equality law in 2009. The group has been fighting – hard – to keep those donors under wraps, even though an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to hide its donors was denied earlier this year. NOM provided more than $1.8 million of the $3 million spent by opponents of marriage equality to pass Question 1 – but it illegally failed to disclose where the money came from.

     NOM has refused to disclose the five anonymous donors who contributed more than $8 million (about 88% of its revenues, even though it poses as a "grassroots" organization) to its coffers in 2010.
     Last year ThinkProgress reported that ABC news learned that the head of the Iowa Family Leader, Bob Vander Plaats, tried to solicit money from Rick Santorum in exchange for his endorsement during the last two presidential elections.

11/9/2010 Video about NOM by then-HRC president Joe Solmonese:



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