Petrelis Files

No on 8 Donations:
$43.6M as of October 18

Many gay bloggers and marriage equality advocates have tossed around the figure of $40 million as the total amount spent by all of the No PACs. I, on the other hand, cited up to $45 million as the correct number, but I couldn't remember exactly where I read that in an SF Chronicle story, so I added up amounts donated to all No PACs to see what was the precise figure, as of the last filing, dated October 18.

Click here to read my breakout of how the No on 8/Equality for All committee spent its money, through the same date. Familiarize yourself with No on 8 expenditures, as part of one's civic duty to follow the campaign money after an election.

I took the amount each No committee had reported as of October 18 from the CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen's web site, to arrived at this amount for total contributions to the No forces: $43,611,039.

Nice chunk of change, and the figure will rise significantly on February 2, which is the day the secretary of state releases the final reports from all of the ballot initiative committees.

And to think the bulk of that pot of power-money didn't provide any visibiity to a married lesbian couple such as Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons, together 55 year. Nor did the millions go towards educating the voters about gay life and our battle for simple equal treatment before the law.

I'm betting that on February 2 we will see the total amount spent fighting Prop 8 was over $50 million.

Here are the numbers from the secretary of state's office:

No on 8/Equality for All
$26,683,254

CA Marriage Equality PAC, Project of EQCA
$10,703,984

Human Rights Campaign CA Marriage PAC
$3,260,724

No on 8/ACLU of Northern CA
$2,079,961

No on 8/National Center for Lesbian Rights
$482,107

Task Force CA/No on 8/National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
$271,350

Log Cabin Republicans Against 8
$70,227

No on 8/Marriage Equality USA
$59,432

No on Props 4 + 8, Feminist Majority
$0

Santa Clara County Against Prop 8
$0

Californians Against Props 4,6,8,9 and For Prop 10
$0

Wine Country Against Prop 8
$0

Council of Churches of Santa Clara Against 8
$0

GLBT Alliance of Santa Cruz County
$0

Total:
$43,611,039

[Photo of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon by Jane Philomen Cleland for the Bay Area Reporter.]