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While folks are marching in DC, don’t forget that back in the other Washington, ballots are dropping and a class of people could lose their rights. Sometimes is sucks to be right: Reject 71 has a sugar daddy after all. Remember this prognostication?
On October 12th, two days before the state starts mailing out ballots to voters, a large donor ban goes into effect in Washington. …I think that [Protect Marriage Washington] has stopped asking for cash because they expect an external entity to buy big media time for them. …Once those ads are on the air, at the time when we need cash the most, it’ll be legally impossible for generous donors to give more [than $5,000]. …We all know how National Organization for Marriage and allied organizations have been riding roughshod over state campaign finance regulations in Iowa and Maine. To them, the end (snuffing out legal protections for families) justifies the means (ignoring campaign laws). All indications are that the same is about to happen here in Washington. The only way to defend against this dirty plan is to CONTRIBUTE. NOW. Before it’s not possible to give more at the time it’s needed most.
Well, it looks like I was right. Details below the fold. If you have the resources to give a gift over $5,000, you need to give now. The most any individual can give after October 12th is $5,000. Whatever your total giving ability is, please give any amount over $5,000 now. All large donations must be in the WAFST campaign manager’s hands by the end of the day Oct. 12th, so please give online if you can. If you prefer to give by check, do not mail it because it will not reach the campaign in time. Instead, email the campaign at donate@approve71.org and someone will come to pick up the check from you. The campaign has people in Washington DC this weekend, so if you are reading this from DC, we can still pick up your check!
Small and medium donors, please be ready to step up to the plate.Dominic over at SLOG has the details on the dirty.
Vote Reject R-71, a political action committee, registered with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission yesterday to campaign against Referendum 71, thereby attempting to repeal the state’s domestic-partnership law. (Read the filing paperwork here: .pdf.)Dave Mortenson, a conservative campaign consultant who filed the PAC, says, “A bunch of individuals contacted me to see if we could raise some money really quick.” He says, “I am not going to share who I’ve been talking to, but if we do get the money, we will report it.” Are these religious groups, corporations, wealthy donors? “We are working them all,” says Mortenson.
October 12 is the deadline for donations over $5000, according to state campaign rules.
Can the group raise a large sum of money before Tuesday? “I’m pretty optimistic, let me put it that way,” says Mortensen, who has worked on Republican legislative campaigns since the 1980s.
At the moment, Protect Marriage Washington has raised $60K, while the Approve 71 groups Washington Families Standing Together and HRC Approve Referendum 71 have raised $779K and $73K, respectively. The Approve 71 campaign anticipated this. Here’s their response:
Filing a new PAC is a “giant red flag” that anti-gay forces are about to dump loads of cash into the anti-gay Reject R-71 campaign, says WAFST campaign manager Josh Friedes. Much of the money for California’s anti-gay Prop 8 came in the final weeks before the election.“The filing of a PAC a few days before the cutoff suggests that this is a strategy to significantly fund an anti-gay campaign but have it cloaked in secrecy until such a time that that it is difficult to respond because of the state’s campaign finance laws,” says Friedes.
“We won’t know until how much money is dumped in until after the cut-off, so it will be hard to make it up in smaller contributions,” Friedes says. “Anybody who can donate over $5,000 should do so now.”
In sharp contrast to Protect Marriage Washington’s crass and cynical use of the state’s campaign finance laws to cloak their funds, and their earlier attempts to hide the identity of their donors, WAFST has been clear and transparent in their financial reporting, proudly listing from day one the names of individual donors as required by state law. Only bandits wear masks.
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Dave MortensonDave Mortenson has been a GOP political consultant for years. In 2006 he was the consultant for GOP candidates who won in Senate districts 6 and 44, and House districts 8 and 31. He’s an effective strategist, which will mean a smear campaign. Here’s a hint of what’s coming:
And this, in October 2008 about the Rossi campaign:
This is not Dave Mortenson’s first run against a gay rights issue. He was THE player in Citizens For Judicial Inquiry (CFJI), a Washington state PAC involved in the campaign for Jeanette Burrage against Justice Tom Chambers. From the Public Disclosure Commission’s answer to a complaint about CFJI (link opens in pdf):
Expect to see recycled ads from that campaign, and at this stage of the game, they are going to be ruthless, blatant, disgusting smear tactics that will make Schubert Flint blush. GET OUT THE VOTE.
AND GODDAMMIT, Y’ALL, DONATE!
(goes off to look for mormon connections, because with those copyrighted images in the ads you KNOW they’re there…)
how I wish the March on Washingtonwere a March on Maine. So much time, effort and money is going to go into this march, when we could have risen up to protect Maine. Hopefully we’ll win and I won’t be eating sour grapes.
fundraisingI have to say that, more and more, I’m really disheartened by WAFST’s approach to approving R-71. My partner and I have given to the cause, and we’ve even had our own signs made up–including one 8-foot-long banner hanging from the side of our home. Our signs are the only signs I’ve seen in Seattle (although I did see two signs in the same yard in Tacoma). KOMO News reported last week that WAFST has raised $780,000 and only spent $200,000. With ballots being mailed out next week and people starting to vote already, and with dozens of people still asking me “How am I supposed to vote?”, I think WAFST really missed the mark by not doing an all-out publicity campaign. There should be signs everywhere! We’ve raised bout $750,000 more than Stickney and his idiots, but it doesn’t matter a bit if the money isn’t spent to raise awareness!
very little moneythe campaign started with less than nothing and so had to make some difficult decisions early on. one decision was not to provide free yard signs in favor of using scarce resources doing direct outreach to our base via phone and other methods.
i’m sorry that your neighbors are still confused. the issues has been covered incessantly in the newspapers and often on tv and radio news and online. if they don’t consult these sources, their confusion will be eased when they get their voter guide in the mail shortly. it’s great that you created that huge sign on your house – this is the sort of personal action that makes campaigns work! i’ve also been circulating the wafst palm cards wherever i go, and people find them a big help too in clearing up lingering questions.
something to remember about the PDC numbers, the expenditure number is only updated once a month, while contribution number is updated weekly. so it looks like wafst has a lot of cash sitting there, but i doubt that’s true. my guess is that much of that has already been used to buy air time, and we’ll be seeing the fruits of those purchases soon. i personally think it was wise of them not to advertise too soon, since as you can see it was clear that the other side had plans to dump huge resources late in the campaign. if wafst had used their meager funds up already, the rejects would have the airwaves to themselves for the next month. if that happened, would you be singing wafst’s praises? i think they’ve been judicious in using what little they’ve got.
Disappointing…I’m sorry but I have to agree with seaharp on this one. My partner and I have been actively following this fight from the beginning. We have contributed financially as well as with our time. We talk to people from all over and every time, we are met with a blank stare from folks who have either not heard of Ref. 71 or, if they have, how to vote on it-and this comes from the GLBT community as well as the straight community. This is a serious problem…
I contacted Washington Families Standing Together on getting some more attention to this matter if in nothing more than keeping the website updated with current information. My concern was that the WAFST site was so out of step with the news, anyone who was seeking information on the referendum would still be left in the dark…For this, I received a snippy, 4-email argument from Jared Johnson at WAFST. It would seem that if the energy spent fighting with me over email was applied to updating their website, they would be much better off and so would we.
I have only seen one commercial about the rights we are fighting to protect and this came from AMIPROTECTED.org. While the commercial was very well done (kudos to them), and carried a strong, emotional message, nothing was mentioned about what people could do to support domestic partnership’s such as the one shared by Charlene Strong and her now deceased partner. In going to the website, nothing is mentioned with regard to Ref. 71 – the very thing being addressed.
In agreement with seaharp, I have only seen a few yard signs in support of Ref.71. Almost all of these have been put there by my friends and were created by me…Raising awareness means “he who gets the most exposure wins”. People need to know that this referendum affects neighbors, friends, relatives…right in their own communities. If WAFST is hoping to raise awareness to this issue, and get people to vote appropriately, I have seen very little evidence. Of course we appreciate any effort to get this passed and are thankful for the efforts of WAFST. However the lack of visual awareness is very frustrating, very disturbing, and very disappointing.
Approve 71′s first ad is upYou can see it here at Pam’s House Blend, or check it out on the very much up-to-date WAFST website.
It’s true that earlier on the news page was a bit chaotic, but it has been as up to date as can be for some time now and is chock-a-block with posts. A lot of work being done at WAFST, including keeping the news page up-to-date, is done by volunteers after work, while they are on break, etc., so some patience and understanding from folks is much appreciated.
Thank you for making signs! If we all do what we can to move forward together, we just might win this thing.
i appreciate your perspectiveI appreciate your comments, Lurleen, and I do agree with WAFST’s approach to laying it on heavy in the home stretch. My point is that ALL bases need to be covered. TV and radio ads are great and effective, but people ALSO need to see green Approve R-71 reminders wherever they are–on their way to work, going to the store, picking up kids from school, heading out for the night. Cadidates post signs all over for a reason–it’s effective and it’s cheap relative to other types of advertising, and it can remind more individuals than you and I alone can, although I would never underestimate the value of a personal reminder. In this last stretch, Approve R-71 needs to be more visible than ever. And I believe the benefits would far outweigh the slight dent it makes in the budget.
I’m glad to see that another reader agrees with me. I also saw the commercial with Charlene Strong, who happened to be a neighbor to one of my friends in Madison Valley, and I too was so surprised that there was no reference to R-71.
I appreciate your viewpoint as we all work together to Approve R-71, but I find the lack of “visuals” to be a huge mistake. So many people–inside and outside our community–have no idea what R-71 is about (in much the same way that so many of them would think that Obama hit the ball out of the park tonight with his HRC speech–not!). A smattering of signs around the city is likely to stir them in our favor…
I have to disagree…People volunteer for things as these because they, and those who accept them on to a workforce, believe they can do the job in the timeframe’s under which they work. If this cannot be the case, then they should not be allowed or shoule not take on the responsibility. This is the REAL world and an excuse such as “well I’m just a volunteer” is of little consequence. If you came to your job with such an excuse, I can only believe you would be among the non-working out there. Being a volunteer does not imply you have the right to use it as an excuse for not being on top of your “job”.
This issue is too important to rely upon irresponsibility regardless of wherever that responsibility originates in the first place. If WAFST is the “voice” of this issue…please take that personally, responsibly, and actively or just don’t do it.
My family is being attacked. How can I justify your arguement?
so then you’re volunteering to take over that job?great!!! can’t wait to hear from the campaign how YOU are making the difference. thanks for stepping up!
the calculus is simpleif you want to see more green in the way of signs, you need to wrangle a boatload of green in the way of money and get them made. then you have to wrangle the people to distribute throughout the state. it’s just that simple, it’s that hard. whether the campaign’s decision not to put money there was a mistake or not i don’t know – not everyone is convinced that yard signs are actually worth much – i have no idea. what i do know is that the decision was made to make signs available for sale on their website, and they also posted free graphics there to be downloaded and printed by whoever wants them. it’s not as nice and easy as going to the campaign and getting a pre-fab sign, but ordering a sign/making our own IS possible.
you didn’t see r-71 mentioned in the strong commercial because the commercial came from the equal rights washington education fund, a 501(c)3 non-profit that is forbidden from participating in political campaigns. their ad was an effective and elegant way to educate the public on the importance of the protections that come with domestic partnerships. that is all that ad could and should do.
PukeWhat fortune cookie did you pull that one out of?
Hello, “missing the point.com? Yes, I have an emergency case for you…”.
I have put in hours, days, dollar’s. Don’t pull the passive-agressive bs on my backside, sistah. How ’bout acknowledging the fact there is a problem. Or, is that too challenging? Cut us a break…