Reports filed with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board this week indicate that independent expenditure group Minnesota’s Future has shifted its behavior after a complaint was filed with the board last month by the Minnesota chapter of Common Cause. That complaint alleged that Minnesota’s Future had failed to detail the full extent of donor information required by law in their last finance report.

Minnesota’s Future is one of the conservative state organizations that has played a central role in outside spending during this year’s gubernatorial campaign between Democrat Mark Dayton, Republican Tom Emmer and Independence Party candidate Tom Horner. The group has received the majority of its funds from the Republican Governors Association (RGA), and used it to run a number of television ads attacking Dayton.

Minnesota’s Future exists as part of a complicated web of organizations all designed to operate harmoniously with the goal of diverting the original source of funding for political ads. The process starts with the RGA, a national organization that rakes in cash from a wide number of avenues ranging from small individual donors to major corporations. The RGA has not actually donated funds to Minnesota’s Future itself; instead the RGA has contributed $2.3 million to a group called Minnesota’s Future LLC an organization technically separate from Minnesota’s Future. The LLC does not directly engage in political campaigning, and instead sends all of its nonoperational funds directly to Minnesota’s Future.

In their complaint, Common Cause charged that the LLC needed to file paperwork with the state board, something the group had not done by the 42-day pre-general election report. Minnesota’s Future LLC appears to have taken that criticism to heart, as the LLC received its own separate filing when this week’s report was released. But other areas of concern in Common Causes’ complaint persist in the new report.

The reports from the LLC still do not disclose the origin of the money for the RGA donations. The pages titled “Source of Funding for Contribution” are left completely blank in the report. Compare that to one of Minnesota Future LLC’s rival organizations — WIN Minnesota — that has received a massive cash infusion from the Democratic Governors Association. Much like the two Minnesota’s Future organizations, WIN Minnesota operates in tandem with a group known as Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM). WIN collects the large cash donations from the national Democrats and funnels it to ABM to run ads.

Unlike Minnesota Future LLC, WIN Minnesota details the original source of the DGA’s funding. It is through these fully completed finance reports that voters can become aware of the fact that national corporations such as AT&T are funding commercials against Emmer. Though the overall source of the RGA’s money is disclosed through IRS filings, by leaving large portions of the campaign finance report blank, Minnesota Future LLC prevents citizens from learning who specifically has invested.

Common Cause Minnesota’s Executive Director Mike Dean responded to these latest filings in a post on the group’s blog earlier this week:

“We are concerned that all the secret money flowing into Minnesota’s Future in an attempt to influence the outcome of the governor’s race,” said Mike Dean, Executive Director of Common Cause Minnesota. “Disclosure of these contributions is not only important in preventing corruption, but it also is vital to enforcing the law.”

At the September reporting deadline, the RGA was Minnesota’s Future’s sole donor outside of a small amount contributed by the group’s registered agent. The vast majority of Minnesota Future LLC’s funds continue to come through donations from the RGA, but Minnesota’s Future has expanded its donor bank slightly beyond the funds from the LLC.

This time around Minnesota’s Future gained $100,000 from a group called State Fund for Economic Growth LLC. That organization serves as a front for a local business much in the same way Minnesota Future LLC allows the RGA to distance itself from the political advertisements it funds. The State Fund for Economic Growth LLC has received all of its funds from banking company TCF Financial International. The group has not directly spent money on any Minnesota races, but contributed an even $100,000 to both Minnesota’s Future and MN Forward, the other conservative organization backing Emmer that has been the center of controversies this election cycle. Minnesota’s Future also picked up $25,000 from Hubbard Broadcasting, another major backer of MN Forward.

(Photo: Flickr Creative Commons/AMagill)