Amendment 3 backers closing the funding gap
Meanwhile, the opponents of Initiative 1 have managed to raise only a fraction of the $1 million supporters have raised to clinch voter approval of the open-space measure.
The State Elections Office received finance reports Tuesday from political issue committees involved in the two measures that will be on the ballot Nov. 2, as well as from candidates and political action committees, in the last filing before the election.
However, one of the three campaigns supporting Amendment 3, Yes! for Marriage, hadn't filed a report by Tuesday. And Traditional Marriage Crusade has dissolved, according to the Elections Office.
Don't Amend, which has spent some $602,600 so far to oppose the measure that would ban same-sex marriage in Utah's constitution, has a healthy $101,800 remaining in its coffers.
There was a combined $33,527 remaining for the two groups supporting the amendment that had reported by Tuesday's deadline — the Constitutional Defense of Marriage Alliance and Utahns for a Better Tomorrow.
The campaign has focused on the amendment's second sentence, which would prevent the legal recognition of any "domestic union" that is the same or substantially equivalent to a marriage.
WordPerfect co-founder Bruce Bastian remained that campaign's largest contributor, giving $339,500 of Don't Amend's $704,426 total.
"It's amazing, people are energized in the last week," said campaign manager Scott McCoy. "People are out there thinking about this. That's great. That's what we need."
Another campaign opposed to the amendment, Utah Lawyers for Sound Constitutional Amendments, raised about $7,500, which it spent on advertisements in Salt Lake City newspapers, according to Dan Berman, the group's founder.
Meanwhile, campaigns supporting the measure have raised at least $440,650 to date, most of that since Sept. 15. Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, co-chairman of the Constitutional Defense of Marriage Alliance, said the three pro-amendment campaigns are "peaking at just the right time."
"People are realizing now that the only thing that goes too far is accepting homosexual marriage as OK," Buttars said.
Utahns for a Better Tomorrow's largest contribution, from Marriage Education Initiatives, came in the form of a $150,000 cash contribution and $50,000 in in-kind services. UBT spokeswoman Nancy Palmeroy did not have information on the nature of that organization, which has a Salt Lake City address. Another sizable donor was WordPerfect co-founder Alan Ashton's company, AK Holding Co., which gave $100,000.
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