The real question is imho “Who actually trusts Maggie Srinavastav with serious money?” I seriously wonder whether she isn’t mostly used as a distraction and flak catcher while the backdoor operators ;) of the Tony Perkins/Chuck Colson famiglia do the serious lifting of going to the conservative clergy and congregations and internal organizations.

What of the remainder? I agree with Cowboy that Alan Ashton is a good candidate. However looking at his 2008 donations, it should be noted that he donated $1 million to Yes on 8 only after Bastian donated $1 million to No on 8. He was acting to cancel out his former WordPerfect co-founder’s donation dollar for dollar. He probably saw it as his duty to make sure that dollars reaped from the sale of WordPerfect did not result in a net gain for gay marriage.

Bastian has not made any large public donations on marriage since then. He donated only $6,000 to No on 1 in Maine. This was a direct donation, and it was disclosed. He might have routed further donations through HRC, but the most that could be is $95K.

Ashton did not make any direct donation to Yes on 1. Ashton could well have opted to counter the Bastian donation via a contribution routed (or laundered) through NOM. But it is no sure bet that he would put in another million when Bastian only went for 6K publicly and at most $100K total.

I think the other candidates for big money donations are Elsa Prince and Howard Ahmanson (who makes his political contributions through a company called Fieldstead). Both of these people gave heavily to Yes on 8 and have vast sums to spend.

On the lower end of the giving spectrum: I would not be surprised to see Focus on the Family donating amounts in the tens of thousands of dollars. I doubt they would go much higher than that, but it would be to their advantage to launder donations through NOM given their mass layoffs in 2009.

Finally, I would not be surprised to see a new name pop up. A high net worth Mormon or Catholic who may have been a small donor previously but who has been urged by his religious leaders to cough up. I also note that Pat Robertson, who has a net worth well into the 9 figures, was curiously absent from the Prop 8 and Question 1 donor lists.

That is a good question… but the answer is that it wouldn’t much matter.

For a 401(c) 4 type organization, the contributions to NOM are not deductible from the donor’s taxes. So it would have no noticeable impact to the donor.

Additionally, were NOM to be considered a for-profit corporation, they would pay tax only on that portion of income that exceeded expenses, which in 2009 would be zero. At worst, NOM faces filing fees – but likely not even that.

Thus the non-profit filing compliance is a formality and NOM knows that there is very little downside to breaking the law. Where they could run afoul is if television and newspapers refused to run ads for a criminal organization and as NOM refuses to follow the law, that is what they are. Additionally, candidates and propositions could be forced to return donations from NOM as they are a law-breaking front group.

It is not the IRS that is our savior on this, but if states insist that campaign laws be observed.

I’m guessing one or two families, who for whatever reason, have an anti-gay agenda to advance, but clearly don’t want the world to know. It has to come out sooner or later.

Ashton and Bastion donated in 2008 for the Prop 8 battle. This 990 covers 2009

I’m wondering where did Bruce Bastian (the other Co-Founder of WordPerfect) put his Million-Dollar donation for our side? Probably through HRC.

Interesting shuffling of huge amounts of money.