Campaign Finance Board releases guidelines on ballot initiatives

The Minnesota Campaign Finance Board released a draft report that details when groups are required to disclose donors who give to support or oppose a ballot initiative.

The board will consider the proposal at a time when groups are ramping up efforts on a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.

"In the past, ballot questions haven't been as polarized or contentious as the current ballot question that we foresee in the 2012 ballot question is shaping up," MN Campaign Fiance Board Executive Director Gary Goldsmith said. "There wasn't much question because organizations were raising money and it was clear that the purpose of raising that money was to promote or defeat a ballot question."

Goldsmith says the proposed guidelines are meant to offer some guidance to outside groups that may contribute to or work on a ballot initiative. Goldsmith says the board already required disclosure for donors who wanted to give money to fund a ballot initiative or was asked by a group to contribute to help a ballot initiative.

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The draft proposal would also detail how a ballot initiative donation to an outside group should be disclosed. For example, a group that details its work in other areas but also mentions the support or defeat of a ballot initiative will have to determine how much of the contribution is directed to the ballot initiative. Those groups would now have to determine how much of a contribution was used for a ballot initiative.

Goldsmith says the Campaign Finance Board will consider adopting the guidelines at a Tuesday meeting.

Here's the document released by the MN Campaign Finance Board:

A 3 B 1 Guidance BQ Disclosurel