The Los Angeles Times is reporting that:
Mormon church reports spending $180,000 on Proposition 8
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/top-officials-w.html>
5:51 PM, January 30, 2009
Top officials with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filed reports today indicating that they donated more than $180,000 in in-kind contributions to Proposition 8, the November ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California.
The contributions included tens of thousands of dollars for expenses such as airline tickets, hotel and restaurant bills and car-rental bills for top church officials such as L. Whitney Clayton, along with $96,849.31 worth of “compensated staff time” for church employees.
The church said the expenditures took place between July 1 and the end of the year. The church’s involvement has been a major issue in the campaign and its aftermath. Individual Mormon families donated millions — by some estimates more than $20 million — of their own money to the campaign.
On top of that, some Prop. 8 opponents say church officials violated election law by failing to file campaign disclosure reports outlining church funds being spent on the campaign. Fred Karger, who filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission after the election alleging that church officials had not properly disclosed their involvement, said he thought today’s filing proves that his complaint has merit.
“They said they reported all their travel … now, when there is a [complaint filed] they disclose 25 Southwest tickets just in October,” he said. “They were required to report this” in an earlier filing, he said.
Church officials could not be reached for comment this evening.
– Jessica Garrison
The Church reported about $190,000 in donations for the calendar year ending Dec. 31, 2008.
The LDS Church filings are listed here at the California Secretary of State’s website.
1 comment so far ↓
The Protect Marriage coalition had to file amended contribution reports after it found out about LDS Church donations that were reported by the Church directly to the CA Secretary of State on Jan 30, 2009. A PM spokesman was interviewed by the Salt Lake Tribune this week, but the interview didn’t say why PM was unaware of the extent of the Church’s contributions until after the Church filed its Major Donor Contribution Reports with the CA Secretary of State on Jan. 30, 2009. The filing deadline for both the LDS Church and PM was February 2, 2009, and both organizations filed their contribution reports on January 30, 2009, so it appears the PM folks did not know what the LDS contribution amounts were prior the Church’s filing. It is possible that the Church notified PM of its contributions at the same time it notified the CA Secretary of State of its contributions, but that’s something we cannot tell from the electronic filings available on the internet.
Because there was some lag time between the time the Church reported its contributions and the time the PM folks filed their amended reports, there was some confusion about whether reports had been timely filed by the appropriate entities. The LDS Church has posted a list of its Prop 8-related filings on its website.
A list of amended filings follows. Most can be found here at this link.
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This is the ProtectMarriage.com report that has all of the LDS Church donations for the the second quarter of 2008 listed in it. It can be found in the Electronic Filings section of the 2007-2008 election cycle. The Church contributions begin on Schedule C.
FILING PERIOD: 04/01/2008-06/30/2008 FILED ON: 2/4/2009 6:32:06 PM
FILING NUMBER: 1350174 AMENDMENT 3
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This is the amended filing for the 3rd quarter of 2008 which picks up the September contributions from the LDS Church. It can be found on the Electronic Filings section of the 2007-2008 donation cycle page. Contributions are aggregated and filed as total daily receipts. The Church contributions begin on Schedule C.
RECIPIENT COMMITTEE CAMPAIGN STATEMENT (F460)
FILING PERIOD: 07/01/2008-09/30/2008 FILED ON: 2/5/2009 11:55:10 AM
FILING NUMBER: 1364931 AMENDMENT 4
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This is the ProtectMarriage.com report that has all of the LDS Church donations for early Oct 2008 listed in it. It can be found in the Electronic Filings section of the 2007-2008 election cycle. The Church contributions begin on Schedule C.:
RECIPIENT COMMITTEE CAMPAIGN STATEMENT (F460)
FILING PERIOD: 10/01/2008-10/18/2008 FILED ON: 2/5/2009 4:19:22 PM
FILING NUMBER: 1369259 AMENDMENT 2
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This is the ProtectMarriage.com Late Donation report that has most of the LDS Church donations (all donations of $1,000 or more) for the last half of 2008 listed in it. The donations that are not included in this form 497 report are those that are less than $1,000. (Sep 5th for ~$640: Sep 18 for ~$505; Oct. 4th donations for ~$222; Oct 16 donations for $700; Oct 29 for $333). Since these donations were less than $1,000, they only needed to be reported on form 460 (the reports listed above). Donations over $1,000 are reported on form 497 on a daily basis. For the purposes of these filings, it appears that PM.com has aggregated all donations made in one day into one line item (so, for instance, multiple SW Airline tickets are added together with multiple hotel room charges and the total for that day is more than $1,000 and gets a line item for the day on PM’s report). This report can be found in the Electronic Filings section under the 2009-2010 Election Cycle.
LATE CONTRIBUTION REPORT (F497)
FILING PERIOD: 02/04/2009-02/04/2009 FILED ON: 2/4/2009 1:22:21 PM
FILING NUMBER: 1389733 AMENDMENT 1
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