SACRAMENTO, CA – Last week,  Fred Karger, a Republican Party Presidential candidate, filed a formal complaint with the California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) against the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) for failing to report a $10,000 contribution which was made to it on October 14, 2008 by then Governor Mitt Romney.

Fred Karger issued the following statement:-

“NOM has once again conspired to hide its contributions, and this time it was Mitt Romney’s,” stated Karger. “The recently unsealed documents (coincidentally from my last campaign ethics violation complaint against NOM in Maine) revealed that NOM received the $10,000 on October 14, 2008 from Romney’s Alabama PAC “Free and Strong America.”

That was only 3 weeks before the Prop 8 election in which NOM was heavily involved. Funny that NOM appears to have reported all the contributions that it received before and after Romney’s, but failed to report Governor Romney’s $10,000 to ban gay marriage in California.

The Maine Ethics Commission and Attorney General’s office have done a phenomenal job of gathering evidence in the money laundering case I filed against NOM on August 24, 2009. The 29 Exhibits they collected are proving to be NOM’s undoing. NOM’s veil of deceit and lies has finally been lifted.

“It looks like it was Exhibit 10 in the Maine case: National Organization for Marriage v. Walter F. McKee, et al which is NOM’s 2008 990 Federal Tax Return that lists the unreported $10,000 Romney contribution.”

Mitt Romney and NOM appear to have gone to a lot of trouble to hide his contribution. I am sure that Romney’s $10K was never meant to never see the light of day.”

NOM was formed in 2007 to assist in passing the Proposition 8 ballot measure in California, the state Constitutional Amendment, which had the effect of rolling back  the Supreme Court decision that allowed same-sex marriage in California. It was at that time that  NOM seemed proud to list all contributors, in its endeavor to showoff  what was perceived as its vast influence in the Prop 8 campaign. It openly claimed to be the biggest donor to the Yes on 8 campaign.

According to Karger, ever since 2009, it appears NOM tries to filter money through its national organization, its Educational Fund or one of its state PACs.

Karger notes, “I have been tracking NOM since we went up against each other for the first time in July of 2008. I led the boycott of one if the largest donors, San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester. Manchester gave $125,000 to NOM to pass Prop 8. Along with Unite Here Local #30, we launched our successful boycott of Manchester’s hotels (to see link, CLICK HERE). The largest, the Manchester Grand Hyatt, reported losing $1 million per month from the still ongoing boycott.

We hope that the FPPC will investigate our complaint,” concluded Karger.”

The statute of limitations on filing campaign ethic’s violations in California is five years.

The New York Times did a feature story on our boycott, NOM’s reaction and its defense of Manchester: CLICK HERE.

Posted by Melanie Nathan

LINK TO FULL COMPLAINT: CLICK HERE.