December 24, 2004

Issue 3 foes are still hiding their backers

Same group, same story with Issue 1; opponents say this breaks election law

by Eric Resnick

Columbus--The anti-gay group behind campaigns to pass an Ohio marriage ban amendment and defeat the repeal of Cincinnati’s Article 12 is still concealing the sources of the money spent on both campaigns.

The Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage, the political action committee that passed Issue 1, and Equal Rights No Special Rights, the PAC that tried to defeat Issue 3, filed campaign finance reports on December 10.

The reports, filed with the Ohio Secretary of State for the Issue 1 campaign and with the Hamilton County Board of Elections for Issue 3, show tens of thousands of dollars coming from non-profit groups which do not identify the source of the money.

Chief among these is a political offshoot of Citizens for Community Values, the suburban Cincinnati group whose president, anti-gay crusader Phil Burress of West Chester, founded both of the campaign PACs.

CCV vice president David Miller is the treasurer of both PACs, which both list CCV’s Sharonville office as their address.

Individuals gave only $370

ERNSR reported spending $189,422 during the period between October 14 and December 3, and receiving in-kind support valued at $934,550.

The total cost of the campaign against Issue 3 was over $1.25 million, setting the record for the most expensive city-wide campaign in Cincinnati’s history.

Yet only $370 of it came from individuals: $50 from Richard Dostal of Cincinnati, $250 from Michael Edwards of Cincinnati, and $50 from John Marcus Jobe of Oxford. The only other individual contributor was Burress, who gave $20 disclosed on an earlier report.

The rest of ERNSR’s money this period came in large installments from other non-profit groups, some in Ohio, others not.

Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colorado gave $90,000, which was spent on newspaper advertising. This money is listed as in-kind support and tied to a separately filed report.

Focus on the Family is the largest, wealthiest anti-gay organization in the world, with annual revenue over $127 million. CCV is its Ohio affiliate.

Six checks totaling $173,000 were passed to ERNSR by Citizens for Community Values Action, a nonprofit corporation chartered last May that is allowed to engage in political activity. Burress is its only director and his attorney David Langdon is its statutory agent.

CCV Action also gave ERNSR $157,476 in-kind, which is listed as covering expenses including advertising, office staff, and automated phone calls to voters.

In addition to the funds it gave to ERNSR, CCV Action was the largest contributor to the Issue 1 statewide campaign.

The sources of its money are not known.

Family Research Council: $777,000

The largest contributor to ERNSR, however, was a $777,000 in-kind contribution from a group called Family Research Council Action in Washington, D.C.

FRC Action, which was formerly known as American Renewal, is a non-profit lobbying organization associated with the rabidly anti-gay Family Research Council founded by Gary Bauer.

The sources of its money are also unknown, though its contribution paid for advertising.

The tax-exempt, non-profit CCV contributed $74 in-kind, which paid for lunch and delivering signs.

ERNSR spent most of the money it got from CCV Action on routine campaign expenses including advertising, polling, postage, phone expenses, printing, food and campaign workers.

ERNSR paid $39,000 for 300 poll workers on election day and $41,272 to individuals as consulting fees. Most of the consultants are Cincinnati area ministers.

Dr. Alveda C. King, daughter of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who is the lone anti-gay voice in the King family, was paid $1,000 to appear at a rally.

The campaign filed suit against the city of Cincinnati over ballot language, and had three attorneys appear on their behalf. But no item in the report accounts for their legal fees or litigation costs.

In contrast, Citizens to Restore Fairness, the campaign that passed Issue 3, raised $107,879 during the same period. This came from several corporations and thousands of individual contributors. Much of it was collected at fundraising house parties and disclosed on the campaign finance reports according to law.

$1.6 million from CCV Action to Issue 1

CCV Action was also the largest single contributor to Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage, the PAC which passed state Issue 1.

It contributed $667,000 in cash to the campaign and $499,941 in-kind this period. CCV Action also paid the $725,678 for the paid petition signature gatherers over the summer.

OCPM listed 212 individual contributors on this report, most of which made contributions of $50 or less.

Rebecca Aicholtz of Terrace Park was the top contributor at $2,000. Next was Robert Kohlhepp of Cincinnati who contributed $1,000.

Burress was the sole individual contributor to the campaign on its earlier report, with a $50 contribution.

Focus on the Family contributed $1,101 in-kind for radio advertising. CCV contributed $98 in-kind for mail and travel expenses.

OCPM spent $671,791 which included $39,778 to print church bulletin inserts and $2,995 to ship them to churches across the state.

TV advertising cost $600,000 and $10,562 was spent on yard signs.

Many suits, but no legal fees

Despite legal challenges to the petitions in the majority of Ohio counties, and legal action in all levels of Ohio courts plus the Ohio Elections Commission and the Ohio Supreme Court, OCPM lists no legal expenses and no attorney fees paid although they had lawyers in all of these cases.

In contrast, the pro-gay Ohioans Protecting the Constitution had more than 600 individual and corporate contributors during the same period, and in-kind support totaling only $1,364. It paid $21,734 for similar legal services.

Although David Miller is the treasurer of both campaigns with the responsibility of filing true and accurate reports, he deferred all questions on them to Burress, who was vacationing and did not reply.

However, Burress has defended the legality of his enterprises’ accounting and reporting.

On the October reports which show the same patterns, Burress told the Cincinnati Enquirer there is nothing sinister about the campaign financing or the motives of the people behind it.

“That accusation can be made all day long. It’s not dealing with the issue as far as I’m concerned,” he added.

Election complaint filed

Issue 1 opponents disagree. They have filed a complaint against Burress, Miller, OCPM, CCV and CCV Action with the Ohio Elections Commission. They say that CCV Action, in particular, has been acting as a proxy for the campaign committee and must disclose its contributors under campaign law.

That action, filed October 25 by Paul Fogarty of Columbus, will be heard by the commission January 6.

Fogarty is represented by Columbus attorney Rick Brunner. Burress and the organizations are represented by Langdon.

According to commission director Phil Richter, the commission can fine Burress and the organizations up to $5,000 if they find a serious offense was committed.

According to its co-chair Gary Wright, CRF is also considering legal action.

GI kills Iraqi guardsman after having sex with him

by Anthony Glassman

with wire reports

Fort Leavenworth, Kan.--An American soldier has pleaded guilty to killing a young Iraqi National Guardsman after the two engaged in consensual sex in a guard tower.

Private Federico Daniel Merida, 21, pleaded guilty in September to the killing of the 17-year-old Iraqi, and was sentenced on September 25 to 25 years in prison, a reduction in rank and a dishonorable discharge.

The Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer obtained records of Merida’s court martial, which is believed to be the first time that an American soldier willfully killed an allied Iraqi soldier. The Iraqi’s name was redacted in the report, but the Los Angeles Times reported that he was Falah Zaggam.

Merida, who was born in Mexico, lived in Biscoe, a small town in North Carolina.

On May 11, when the Iraqi went to relieve himself, Merida chambered a single round in Zaggam’s AK-47 assault rifle and then removed the clip.

When Zaggam returned from the latrine, Merida handed him the rifle, then forced the young man’s finger to pull the trigger, shooting the chambered bullet into the roof of the guard tower. Merida then called in that Zaggam tried to kill him and shot the young man with his M‑4, a shortened version of an M‑16.

After Zaggam had fallen down the guard tower’s stairs, Merida continued to shoot him. Zaggam had 11 bullet wounds.

Afterwards, Merida took the magazine out of his M-4 and called in that he had killed Zaggam.

Merida’s final account of the events that night was the third he offered to investigators.

First, he told them that Zaggam demanded money from him, threatening him with the AK-47, and that the young man’s death was self-defense.

When investigators were skeptical of that story, Merida claimed the teen forced him to have sex.

Interviewed a third time, Merida confessed that they had engaged in consensual sex, and that he had killed Zaggam afterwards.

Merida pleaded guilty to murder without premeditation and two counts of giving false statements as part of a plea bargain that ensured his sentence would not exceed 25 years.

Merida, a member of the North Carolina National Guard, apologized to Zaggam’s family during his court martial.

“He was a son, a brother, someone very important to them,” he said. “I took someone they loved and cared for.”

He is being held at Fort Leavenworth following the court martial, which took place at Forward Operating Base Danger in Iraq.

‘No on 1’ group won’t be fined for credit card account mixup

by Eric Resnick

Columbus--While the campaign to defeat Issue 1 broke the law by mishandling a credit card account, a state panel says it was a mistake and they will not penalize anyone.

The Ohio Elections Commission unanimously found on December 16 that Ohioans Protecting the Constitution violated election law, but the commission ended the matter with neither fine nor penalty.

OPC campaigned unsuccessfully to defeat a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, civil unions, and other relationships outside civil marriage.

The group filed the complaint on itself with the commission December 10 in a procedure known as self referral.

The matter concerned $78,920 of credit card contributions made through the campaign’s web site. According to papers filed with the commission, money and records did not transfer daily from the credit card merchant account to the campaign account.

The campaign also said that political director Ian James, who controlled the account, improperly paid campaign expenses with the money instead of getting checks from treasurer Lynn Greer.

James was dismissed over the matter on October 28, five days before the election.

In the end, the accounts balanced “to the penny” and all transactions were accounted for.

OPC attorney Rick Brunner of Columbus said it was a “technical defect” that kept the campaign from reporting completely and exactly as the law requires.

Brunner said he advised OPC to do the self-referral to avoid Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell questioning its financial statements.

Blackwell is anti-gay and was a spokesperson for the opposition’s campaign to pass Issue 1. He was also a co-chair of President George W. Bush’s Ohio re-election campaign, which encouraged the amendment to get socially conservative voters to the polls.

Brunner represented OPC before the seven-member commission.

Commission director Phil Richter, who is also its counsel, said self-referrals are very rare, adding, “I know of only three other cases over the nine years I have been here.”

Richter said as far as the commission is concerned, the case is over.

It was Richter who recommended this course of action to the commission.

“I think [James] was more independent than [the campaign] would have liked,” said Richter, “but it was handled based on their representations, and nothing they said was refuted or challenged by the secretary of state or anyone else.”

Brunner said that during the hearing only Commissioner William Mallory, a Cincinnati Democrat, questioned him.

“He said, ‘The issue is that the consultant got his money first’,” said Brunner. “And I answered, ‘That’s essentially what happened’.” Brunner called the decision “a good result all the way around.”

According to campaign manager Alan Melamed, the campaign has some outstanding bills to pay, but should end up with $20,000 to $25,000 left over.

The campaign will file a year-end report with the secretary of state on January 31.