Gay rights campaign costs filed

Gay rights supporters far outspent their opponents in the final days of the Question 1 campaign, according to post-election finance reports filed Tuesday.

Maine Won’t Discriminate, the group that successfully derailed the Nov. 8 attempt to repeal the state’s gay rights law, raised about $200,000 and spent more than $300,000 between Oct. 28 and Dec. 13, according to filings with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices.

That brought the cost of their campaign to about $1.1 million – nearly three times that of those trying to repeal the new law, which extends the state’s anti-discrimination statute to gays and lesbians in areas including housing, employment and education.

Maine Won’t Discriminate’s final financial push included an extensive television advertising buy and phone-banking operation designed to mobilize voters – particularly those on college campuses, according to Patricia Peard, the group’s treasurer.

“What the youth did for us was very important,” Peard said Tuesday evening. “If you include that in the field operations, it was enormous.”

When all the votes were counted, 55 percent of Mainers opposed the repeal and 45 percent favored it. The law, which was put on hold pending the referendum results, will now take effect Dec. 28.

The Maine Grassroots Coalition and the Coalition for Marriage, a political arm of the Christian Civic League of Maine, raised a combined $76,000 and spent $94,000 in their effort to repeal the law. That brought the total cost of their campaigns to just short of $412,000. Those campaigns finished with a combined $2,900 left in their coffers.

Maine Won’t Discriminate finished with about $16,000 on hand.

Paul Madore of the Maine Grassroots Coalition said Tuesday that supporters of the repeal were simply outspent – specifically citing the opposition’s costly get-out-the-vote effort.

“All of these things add up to votes, and in the end we had to realize they had more marbles than us,” said Madore, adding his group was now preparing for a fight over gay marriage.

“It will come as sure as night follows day,” Madore said, predicting a push for same-sex unions in the near future.

Gay-rights advocates have dismissed any imminent plans to pursue such unions, predicting such an effort was five or 10 years away.

Although Question 1 was easily the highest profile question on the November 2005 ballot, the combined $1.5 million spent by both sides pales in comparison to recent referendum campaigns.

In 2003, supporters and opponents of a tribal casino in southern Maine raised about $10 million.

In 2004, more than $3 million was spent during the campaign to impose a property tax cap in Maine.