Federal Judge Morrison England Jr. ruled this week that it was legal for organizations opposed to Proposition 8 to publicly disclose the identities of approximately 1,600 donors who gave between $100 and $999 to pro-Prop 8 causes since October 18th.
Proposition 8, the statewide ballot initiative which
called for a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as being
exclusively between a man and a woman, passed by a 5 percent margin in November 2008, and was one of the more polarizing topic this past election season,
outside of anything having to do with unlicensed plumbers and
lipstick-clad pigs.
According to National Public Radio, two organizations that campaigned for the gay marriage ban – ProjectMarriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage California – filed a lawsuit to stop the disclosure of donors, claiming that their donors have been targeted and threatened by opponents of Prop 8.
One donor, after it was disclosed he made a five-figure donation to the gay marriage ban cause, had his stores picketed and three Facebook groups form to boycott his merchandise, reported NPR.
The plaintiff’s attorney, James Bopp, told NPR that the public disclosure of donors “Presents a serious issue for the kind of civil society we’re going to have and whether or not democracy is going to continue to flourish.”
The law challenged by Bopp and his clients is the Political Reform Act of 1976; which requires the public identification of all donors of $100 or more to state and local political campaigns. Donor’s addresses, occupations, and employers must be reported to the state and then publicly disseminated. Since 1997, however, donor’s addresses are not publicly listed on the Internet to avoid harassment or stalking.
The “Yes on 8” group claims that a ballot initiative like Proposition 8 does not count as a political campaign and therefore does not fall under the umbrella of the Reform Act. Apparently Judge England disagrees.
According to a report in the San Jose Mercury News, opponents of Prop 8 have used websites such as www.eightmaps.com to publicize the home or work addresses of Yes on 8 donors. The website uses the popular Google Maps option to pinpoint the locations of donors.
Fred Krager, founder of the group Californians against Hate and a contributor to eightmaps.com, told the Mercury News that he was “very pleased that the law was upheld.”
But not everyone agrees. Loyola Law School professor Rick Hasen thinks there are two valid sides to the debate over the public disclosure of donor’s identities.
“There is something very disturbing about people being harassed because they’ve given money to a particular ballot measure, Hasen told NPR. “On the other hand, I think the idea that a court would come in and strike down a long-standing statute that serves an important public purpose is unlikely.”
While both sides might have their legitimate points, the court ultimately decided that more validity was on the side of those favoring the public identification of donors.
In his closing argument before Judge England, Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini insisted that striking down the Reform Act would “keep the entire California electorate in the dark as to who was funding these ballot measures.”
One of the attorneys for Project Marriage, Richard Coleson, countered that the law requiring public disclosure means “the government is getting in the middle of the issue and saying, ‘Here are the people to go after.’”
England disagreed, noting that ballot initiative donations fall under the same transparency standards as political campaign contributions.
“If there ever needs to be sunshine on a particular issue, it’s a ballot measure,” England said when delivering his verdict.
Regardless of your views on gay marriage, most can agree that true transparency is essential to effective government. Laws like the Reform Act of 1976 allow voters to get a better idea of just who it is they’re voting for, and websites like opensecrets.org have made looking up the political donations of public figures both a fun and informative way to kill a slow afternoon at the office. Harassment and stalking are obviously indefensible, but no one ever claimed that making a political donation was some sort of secret undertaking. It can be hard to separate the emotional baggage of the gay marriage debate from the serious questions of privacy and transparency, but the fact remains that a political donation is a very public thing. Privacy, that great white whale of constitutional scholars, is reserved for more personal matters…like how you voted on a particular issue.
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