disclosures

Court: Target Can’t Hide Donations to Tom Emmer

Supporters of Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, the Target and Best Buy pick, wanted federal Judge Donovan Frank to issue a temporary injunction blocking a state law that requires companies to disclose where they’re sending political donations. Frank was all: Uh, no.

“Invalidating the election laws at issue here would likely result in corporations making independent expenditures without any reporting or disclosure on the eve of the upcoming general election on November 2, 2010,” Frank wrote in his ruling. “This result so close to the election would clearly harm the state, Minnesota voters, and the general public interest.”

The lawsuit, brought by groups including the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life and the Taxpayers League, wanted the court to overturn the legislature’s reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United. While that decision allows corporations to make political donations to their hearts’ content, like Target did with the MN Forward PAC, the Minnesota law requires these companies to disclose how they’re spending their money — which is not, Judge Frank ruled, a violation of their First Amendment rights.

Which corporations have now, apparently.

But it’s to be expected from Emmer’s backers. After all, the candidate is such a believer in the First Amendment he doesn’t want children’s right to call each other “faggots” to be impinged.

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