UC Employees Dig Deeper for Bush, Kerry Campaigns

University of California employees have given more than nine times as much money to the presidential candidates this year as they did in 2000, with more than 95% of it going to Sen. John F. Kerry.

At major colleges and universities nationwide, the Democratic nominee also has been the main beneficiary of employee donations to the presidential race, outpacing President Bush by more than 6 to 1, according to campaign contribution records.

Through the end of August, the senator from Massachusetts had collected more than $4.6 million from faculty, staff and others affiliated with the nation’s institutions of higher education, compared with about $740,000 for Bush.

In the UC system, the disparity was even more striking: By Aug. 31, UC employees had given Kerry more than $580,000; Bush had received about $26,000.

Overall, donations from colleges nationwide represent a tiny fraction of the individual contributions collected by the two campaigns -- less than 3% of Kerry’s total and about half of 1% for Bush.

But, as at the University of California, employees of colleges across the country have contributed far more to the current presidential campaigns than they did four years ago when Bush and Vice President Al Gore together collected about $830,000 on campuses.

Strong views on the Iraq war, the rise of the Internet as a fundraising tool and recent changes in campaign financing rules all appear to have fueled academic donations to the presidential race this year, political analysts and education officials say.

In California, where the presidential campaign often seems to be playing out at a distance, a desire to avoid a hairsbreadth result like that in 2000 also appears to have motivated some college contributors.

With the state likely to vote Democratic in the presidential contest, “it doesn’t do much good to go out and canvass locally,” said Kirk R. Smith, a UC Berkeley environmental health sciences professor and a Kerry contributor. “So what can you do, especially if you can’t go to another state to campaign? Money is one thing you can do.”

Donors from the University of California have given more to Kerry’s presidential bid than any other group of employees at a company or institution nationwide, according to data compiled by Dwight L. Morris & Associates, a nonpartisan research group that analyzes campaign finance reports for The Times and other news organizations.

To some extent, that reflects the huge size of the institution, which has 10 campuses, three national laboratories and about 160,000 employees. Less than 1% of UC employees made donations to Kerry or Bush, roughly in line with participation rates at other large public universities, according to a separate analysis of campaign contribution records by The Times.

Federal campaign regulations require that people who give money report their employer and occupation. Among UC donors, more than two-thirds of those who listed their occupations said they were faculty members, with the remainder being staff, researchers and administrators.

Other universities also are important sources of cash for the Kerry campaign, with Harvard University employees ranked second on Kerry’s overall list of industry contributors (with $261,000 donated) and Stanford, Columbia and the University of Michigan all in his top 20.

The University of Texas, in the president’s home state, produced $49,000 in donations for Bush’s campaign, more than any other school. Kerry received about $67,000 from UT employees.

No university employee groups figure near the top of Bush’s list, which is led by financial services and insurance firms.

The overwhelmingly Democratic tilt of academic contributions has been a topic for some conservatives.

“How in a democracy and an institution which is committed to academic freedom and intellectual pluralism ... can such a monolith exist?” David Horowitz, an author and longtime critic of what he sees as left-wing bias on campus, said of the UC contributions.

Several UC professors who gave money to Bush said they wished that more conservative opinions were expressed on campus. But they were not troubled by their colleagues’ Democratic donations.

“My guess is that the Democrat-leaning folks feel the same way I do, that they’re expecting a close race and feel they ought to do something,” said Charles Akemann, a UC Santa Barbara math professor and advisor to the campus’ College Republicans club.

“They feel the same as I do. They’re just cheering for the other team.”

The UC employees interviewed, Democrats and Republicans alike, said they knew of no organized political fundraising efforts at the university or any of its campuses or labs.

But like many Americans, many college contributors at UC and elsewhere have strong opinions about the conflict in Iraq and the war on terror.

“We have issues of war and peace right now, and those issues historically have energized college campuses more than your standard roundup of domestic issues,” said Travis Reindl, director of state policy analysis at the American Assn. of State Colleges and Universities. “That’s drawing folks out with their checkbooks who might not have been drawn before.”

At UC Berkeley, the war was a key motivation for professors Carl Shapiro and Marti Hearst, who held two house parties in the spring that raised more than $50,000 for Kerry, much of it from UC colleagues. Shapiro, an economist who served in the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Clinton administration, said he had never been politically active before.

“But this president has motivated me,” he said. “Everybody’s got their issues. Mine are [Bush’s] environmental policies, his fiscal recklessness, the arrogance of his foreign policy, misleading us on Iraq. It’s a direction so misguided that I felt compelled to get involved.”

Eugene Volokh, a constitutional scholar at UCLA’s School of Law, said he too felt driven by Iraq and national security issues in deciding to give $1,000 to the Bush campaign. A Republican, Volokh says he doesn’t agree with the party on all issues, “but on balance, I think the Republicans have a better agenda for the country.”

Although there have been errors on Iraq, Volokh said, “the Bush administration’s instincts and approach to the war are better than the Democrats would have done. It’s demonstrated the importance of military strength and proving to our enemies that if attacked, we’ll hit back hard.”

Several professors interviewed said the presidential election was a frequent topic of conversation on their campuses, but others said they rarely discussed politics with colleagues.

“Maybe in political science they talk about it,” said Akemann at UC Santa Barbara. “But not really in the math department. We tend to spend most of our time talking about math.”

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UC contributors

Presidential campaign donations by those listing the University of California as their employer are nine times larger this year than in 2000 and favor Sen. John F. Kerry over President Bush by more than 20 to 1. Kerry also has raised far more than Bush at other colleges and universities.

University contributions

Kerry 2004*: $4.64 million

Bush 2004*: $737,500

Gore 2000: $437,462

Bush 2000: $390,455

*--* University of California Other universities Kerry 2004* $581,834 $4,056,954 Bush 2004* $25,625 $711,875 Gore 2000 $51,395 $386,067 Bush 2000 $13,200 $377,255

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*As of Aug. 31

Source: Times analysis of Federal Elections Commission contribution data compiled by Dwight L. Morris & Associates