In a letter sent this week, Don't Amend Alliance director Scott McCoy urged Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and his staff to review a loophole in state law that allows companies to incorporate and funnel money to political causes without having to disclose where their money comes from.

McCoy alleges that Marriage Education Initiatives was a "shell" for Utahns for a Better Tomorrow's out-of-state donors. One of four political issues committees organized to promote Utah's amendment, Utahns for a Better Tomorrow largely paid for the pro-amendment ad campaign.

"It may be legal. It may not be a technical violation of the law. But it certainly violates the spirit of the law," McCoy says. "It's a loophole that allows anyone at any time to completely circumvent the public disclosure system. That has to be a problem."

In late October of last year, Marriage Education Initiatives organized the same day the nonprofit corporation sent a check to Utahns for a Better Tomorrow.

Incorporation papers initially listed an office address that did not exist. MEI Company trustee Neal Blair was listed on amendment supporters' Web site as the contact for making donations.

At the same time, amendment backers said they did not know Blair and did not know where Marriage Education Initiatives' money came from.

Campaign disclosure forms filed last week show Utahns for a Better Tomorrow received virtually all of its funding from two sources: $171,000 in cash and in-kind donations from Marriage Education Initiatives and $175,000 from AK Holdings Co., a corporation owned by Alan Ashton and his wife. Alan Ashton is an LDS mission president in Toronto.

Ashton's former WordPerfect partner, Bruce Bastian is the source of much of the Don't Amend Alliance's financing, providing nearly $350,000 in the fight against the marriage amendment.

McCoy sent his letter after outgoing Senate President Al Mansell urged Shurtleff to look into the Truth in Politics political action committee, a shadowy group that targeted Republican lawmakers and former Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman with a series of negative mailings before the 2004 election.

"I would like to avoid a repeat of this destructive, underhanded behavior - from either side of the political spectrum," Mansell wrote.

McCoy says he plans to hold Mansell to that nonpartisan commitment to clean up Utah's campaign disclosure laws. "They need to be consistent. They can't be hypocrites," he said. "Either you're in favor of insuring a truly sound and transparent electoral system, or you're not."

Utahns for a Better Tomorrow Co-Chairman Monte Stewart defended the MEI donation as "completely legal."

"I am not a political animal," Stewart said. "I can think of a lot of reasons for disclosure. I can think of a lot of reasons against disclosure."

Shurtleff spokesman Paul Murphy said the attorney general "will look into" McCoy's complaint.