The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board has dismissed a complaint against the Minnesota Family Council, saying that the council is not a political committee and therefore doesn't have to disclose its donors.
Common Cause Minnesota had filed the complaint in February, alleging that the Minnesota Family Council had become a political committee subject to disclosure rules because its major purpose has become working for passage of the proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
But the board, in a seven-page ruling, agreed with the council has a different major purpose, agreeing with the council's assertion that:
The Council's overarching mission is to support, lobby for, and preserve laws and policies that strengthen families because, as it says in our Statement of Principles, "[w]e believe that the family is the fundamental institution in a civil society, and government should promote and protect its formation and well being."
Noted the board's ruling:
"While the Board is not saying in these findings that an association may never change its major purpose, it is saying that MFC has not done so based on its mission over its entire existence. If the Board is to evaluate an association's major purpose over a shorter period of time than its entire existence, that direction should come from the legislature."