COLUMN ONE : Political Money by the Bundle : As PAC contributions acquire an unsavory image, members of Congress turn to corporate executives. In some cases, dozens of checks arrive in a single envelope.

Whenever Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) goes to Los Angeles to raise campaign funds, the generous outpouring of money he receives from top movie studio executives is enough to make any politician envious.

Disney Chief Executive Officer Michael D. Eisner is said to be “territorial” about hosting Hollywood fund-raisers for Bradley, an old friend, and invariably hundreds of executives respond by writing personal checks to the former New York Knicks basketball star.

As a result, Bradley has already collected more than $130,000 for his current reelection campaign in personal checks from top corporate executives of Disney, Paramount, Warner and MCA studios--far more than the $22,400 that he has gotten from their political action committees.

Bradley’s fund-raising success among movie executives is significant not only because it nets so much money, but also because it represents what many analysts view as a pattern for the future in efforts by American industry to influence important members of Congress.

With PAC contributions acquiring an unsavory image in recent years, members of Congress have begun to solicit more and more personal contributions from top corporate executives. In some cases, dozens of checks arrive in a single envelope that identifies them as contributions from one corporation.

The technique--known as bundling--is entirely legal, and for many prominent American companies that are struggling to maintain their influence here, it is fast becoming more popular than PAC contributions.

Bundling is “the hot new idea” in campaign financing circles, says University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “That’s where the real influence is,” he asserts. “It’s with the gatherers--the people who collect $100,000 at a shot.”

The advantages of bundling are clear. Not only do contributions by corporate executives carry less of a stigma than PAC donations, but collectively a corporation’s top brass may give as much as they want to political campaigns, as long as none of them individually donates more than $2,000 to a single congressional candidate. Under current law, PACs are prohibited from giving more than $10,000 to a congressional candidate.

Even some members of Congress who refuse to accept PAC contributions--such as Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.)--still solicit donations from top corporate executives. Movie studio executives from Disney, Paramount, Warner and MCA have given Kerry $27,500 and Markey $15,000 since 1987.

For the movie studios, bundling is part of an effort to solidify their support in Congress in anticipation of another battle with the TV networks over the controversial question of financial interest and syndication--specifically, whether the networks will be allowed to own the shows that they broadcast.

A computer-assisted review by The Times of contributions by executives of four studios found that donations to congressional candidates by executives of Disney, MCA, Warner and Paramount grew enormously, from $57,200 in the 1983-84 campaign to $359,475 so far in the current 1989-90 cycle. The contributions are listed in records of the Federal Election Commission.

Many of these checks arrived in bundles. On a single day, for example, Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) received a wad of 37 checks from Warner executives, ranging from $500 to $1,000.

The increase in personal contributions from movie studio executives has far outpaced the growth of political action committee donations. During the 1983-84 campaign cycle, the movie-studio PACs contributed almost three times more than the executives did. But in the current cycle, the balance has shifted--to $324,569 from the four studio PACs and $359,475 from individual executives.

Only Paramount executives still consistently give more money through their PAC than they do through executive donations.

Moreover, the personal checks from the executives seem to be just as effective as PAC contributions in winning political influence for corporations. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), the current GOP candidate for governor, who frequently talks about his ability to raise funds from studio executives, vigorously represents their interests in Washington.

Ellen S. Miller, director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a think tank that studies campaign finance issues closely, contends that bundlers generally have more clout in Washington than PAC sponsors.

“Therein lies the real special interest of money in politics,” she says.

It isn’t clear how many other industries have turned to bundling in making their contributions to political candidates, but experts such as Miller suspect that the practice is widespread.

“Our hunch is that in most of the industries where PACs are now active, you’ll find that the major individual contributors represent the very same interests,” Miller says. “That would include the oil and gas industry, banking, savings and loans and real estate.”

The University of Virginia’s Sabato predicts that bundling will continue to gain in popularity, particularly if Congress adopts measures now being considered in both the House and Senate that would limit the amount of PAC contributions that a congressional candidate may receive.

Ironically, bundling is beginning to develop a bad image of its own--partly because it was used by Charles H. Keating Jr., owner of Lincoln Savings & Loan, to funnel thousands of dollars of campaign contributions to five senators, including Cranston, who intervened on his behalf with federal regulators.

In fact, to many would-be campaign-financing reformers, bundling is no better--and may even be worse--than PAC contributions.

Sabato points out that because some donors do not disclose their occupations, bundled corporate contributions often can be disguised in Federal Election Commission records. PAC donations, on the other hand, show up clearly in the record as special-interest money.

“In that one sense, PAC contributions are superior to individual contributions,” he says.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Common Cause, an organization that is lobbying for campaign reform, argues that both bundling and PAC contributions must be restricted.

“The problem with bundling is that it’s a technique for evading PAC contribution limits,” Wertheimer says. “It’s a direct threat to the integrity of the campaign finance system. If the contribution limits are to have any impact, you have got to stop bundling.”

In response to such criticism, Senate Democrats have proposed a measure that seeks to restrict the practice of bundling. But experts say such a law would be impossible to enforce: All Americans--no matter what their corporate affiliation--have a constitutional right to make personal political contributions.

In the movie industry, there is no evidence that bundling represents an attempt to circumvent the limits on PAC contributions. Instead, it seems to be part of the corporate culture--an informal system that has emerged among top executives in politically active companies.

“It’s not a policy--it’s a custom that’s developed,” says Joe Shapiro, Disney senior vice president and general counsel.

Shapiro is one of many studio executives who have solicited contributions from co-workers on behalf of congressmen. Beneficiaries of his efforts include Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) and Reps. Beryl Anthony Jr. (D-Ark.), Thomas McMillen (D-Md.), Mike Synar (D-Okla.), Lawrence J. Smith (D-Fla.), Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica).

Sometimes the co-workers mail in their own contributions, but frequently Shapiro gathers the checks into a single envelope. “If you set out to raise $6,000 for Sally Smith, you collect all the checks and then mail them out all at once,” he says.

Tim Boggs, vice president of public affairs and PAC chairman at Warner, offers a similar explanation: “It’s like when you go around your office collecting for the United Way or any other charity,” he says. “You wait until you have a bunch of checks, and then you send them in.”

George Smith, MCA vice president and PAC chairman, said he was unaware of any bundling at his studio and added he always mails his contributions directly to the candidate’s campaign. “I get an invitation. There’s an envelope. I send the check back in the envelope,” he says.

Paramount officials declined to discuss their fund-raising activities.

Although Shapiro is an officer of the Disney PAC, he said he usually undertakes his fund-raising activities apart from the PACs, either on his own or at the request of Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America. The Disney PAC does not coordinate personal contributions by individual executives, he said, nor are these individual checks viewed as an official part of any Disney strategy to influence legislation in Washington.

Similarly, there is no evidence that the movie studios pressure their employees to make these contributions. “Nobody stands here with a raise in one hand and says, ‘give me a contribution before you get the raise,’ ” Shapiro says.

Hollywood fund-raising parties are an integral part of the bundling system. Top movie executives such as Eisner and MCA Chairman Lew R. Wasserman often invite other studio officials to political fund-raisers at their homes. A few corporate executives are designated to collect checks.

Often, even executives who do not attend make contributions. In fact, McMillen, another former basketball star who is very popular in Hollywood, recalls having received checks from people in the movie industry even after his Los Angeles fund-raising event was canceled.

Perhaps the biggest difference between PAC contributions and bundled donations in Hollywood is that while PACs tend to contribute primarily to candidates who support their industries regularly, executive donations occasionally go to lawmakers such as Bradley, who do little to aid the business.

“We’ve gone to Sen. Bradley on trade issues and asked him to sponsor a bill,” says an industry source. “He wouldn’t do it. He said he doesn’t sponsor special-interest legislation.”

Bradley’s popularity among movie industry people clearly has more do to with his fame as a former basketball star than his position on the issues. “I come from a quasi-show business background,” Bradley explains. “Many of these people are basketball fans.”

The New Jersey senator also is seen by movie people as a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination--even though he insists he is not running.

Bradley’s friendship with Disney’s Eisner has been particularly helpful to him in California, which has provided $1 out of every $7 that the New Jersey senator has netted for his current campaign.

By Bradley’s own account, he met Eisner years ago partly through the efforts of a mutual friend, author John McPhee. McPhee went to the same summer camp as Eisner, wrote a book about Bradley and is the godfather to Bradley’s daughter. The Eisners and Bradleys have been close ever since.

In fact, Eisner admires Bradley so much that he objects whenever anyone else in the movie industry tries to throw a fund-raiser for the New Jersey senator. “He’s territorial about it,” says an industry source. “Nobody does fund raising for Bill Bradley but Eisner.”

Among Eisner’s fund-raising events for Bradley was a $1,000-a-plate dinner that he co-hosted at the Century Plaza Hotel last year with Michael Ovitz, head of Creative Artists Agency. The gala netted the senator about $600,000--the largest haul ever recorded for

any Democrat in California, Eisner announced during the evening.

Although a Bradley campaign spokesman says the senator hired a professional fund-raiser to collect checks after the Century Plaza party, studio executives normally serve that function.

Just six months earlier, Eisner held a $250-a-head fund-raiser for Bradley at the Disney executive’s Beverly Hills home. Bradley’s campaign headquarters in New Jersey later received three bundles of checks from executives of Warner, three from Paramount, five from MCA and 12 from Disney.

Shapiro insists that Disney executives were not under pressure to buy tickets for these fund-raisers. He says Eisner sometimes puts a hand-written note into every invitation that he sends to a Disney employee, saying in effect that “you should only go if you want to go.”

For whatever reasons, Disney executives clearly appear to share their boss’s appreciation of Bradley. Since 1987, the senator has received $52,165 from Disney executives and another $25,750 from their spouses and children.

Of the 59 Disney executives who have contributed to Bradley in the past four years, 29 of them made no other political contribution to any presidential or congressional candidate during that period. Six of them have given $2,000--the most that an individual can contribute to one congressional candidate in one election--and six more appear likely to hit the $2,000-mark before the November election.

Meanwhile, the Disney PAC gave Bradley only $2,000, rather than the maximum legal contribution of $10,000. Shapiro says the Disney PAC never gives any candidate more than $2,000.

While Bradley may receive the largest amount of movie-studio contributions, he is not entirely typical of the members of Congress who depend on movie studio executives for contributions. Most of them--like Californians Wilson and Cranston--tend to push legislation sought by the studios or to serve on committees that have jurisdiction over the industry.

Ever since 1983, when Wilson went all-out to help the movie industry thwart an effort by the Federal Communications Commission to allow the networks to own the programs that they air, he has received considerable financial support from studio executives.

During his last reelection campaign, Wilson got the maximum contribution of $10,000 each from the MCA, Warner and Paramount PACs, as well as $48,250 from executives of the four studios. He also benefited from fund-raisers at the Wasserman home and the Disney studios.

Although most of the money that Wilson’s campaign collected from the Wasserman fund-raiser came the day before the event, the checks continued to arrive in small bundles for several weeks after--$7,000 from MCA and Warner executives on April 18, and $5,000 from three top Disney officials on April 30.

Wilson and many other recipients of movie studio contributions will be called upon once again to assist the industry later this year if the FCC issues regulations on the financial interest and syndication issue that favors the networks. If the studios lose the battle in the FCC, they are expected to ask Congress to intervene.

Although the studio PACs try to be bipartisan, the executives clearly favor Democrats.

Most of the other top recipients of contributions from movie studios since 1987 are Democrats, including Cranston with $40,750; Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, $34,500; Sen. Kerry of Massachusetts, $27,500; Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, $20,500; Rep. Markey of Massachusetts, $15,000; as well as Berman and Levine.

In the 1988 presidential race, Democratic candidate Michael S. Dukakis also received $47,300 from these executives, compared to $4,000 for President Bush.

Bentsen, Kerry and Markey are all members of committees that have direct jurisdiction over legislation affecting the movie industry. Other committee members who received smaller amounts from studio executives include Democrats McMillen and Synar and Republican Pressler, Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) and Democrat Reps. Jack Brooks of Texas, Dennis E. Eckart of Ohio and Matthew J. Rinaldo of New Jersey.

These are the members of Congress on whom the movie executives call whenever they come to Washington to lobby. Not long ago, for example, Eisner made the rounds of many of these offices on Capitol Hill seeking support for a Disney-related amendment to the cable television bill now under consideration in Congress.

Faced with many difficulties in distributing their motion pictures overseas, the movie studios also are beginning to focus more attention on members of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees. Just three weeks ago, for example, the Warner executives hosted a studio fund-raiser for Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.).

Out-of-state congressmen are almost as likely to get studio money as Californians. Disney executives especially favor members from Florida, where Disney World is located.

Former Florida Gov. Bob Graham, a Democrat, was elected to the Senate in 1986 with $25,500 from Disney executives. In fact, their contributions to Graham represented almost half of all the money they contributed to congressional candidates that year.

On March 14, 1986, Graham made a speech to Disney employees at their Burbank studio. A fund-raiser at Eisner’s house followed. FEC records show that Graham later received the following bundles: 27 checks ranging from $500 to $1,000 from Disney executives on March 21; nine checks totaling $5,500 from Disney executives on March 25; five checks totaling $3,000 from Paramount executives on March 21; and a $500 check from Bob Daly of Warner on March 21.

Graham, who as governor helped to lure the movie studios into doing more business in Florida, makes no secret of his willingness to help them, both in Washington and in the Florida Statehouse. Just recently, according to Graham, some of the same movie studio executives who contributed to his campaign came to lobby him on copyright matters. Although federal election law prohibits direct corporate contributions to candidates, corporations are permitted to spend up to $2,000 on fund-raisers such as the ones hosted at the movie studios, according to FEC spokeswoman Sharon Snyder. Individuals such as Eisner and Wasserman can spend up to $1,000 each hosting fund-raisers at their homes.

None of these expenditures need be reported to the FEC.

Any additional expenses of a studio-sponsored fund-raiser must be paid for by the candidate and reported to the FEC. Bradley, who meticulously pays for all of the costs of his fund-raisers, even those hosted by Eisner, has written checks totaling $5,700 to Disney in the past few years for expenses incurred by the company in throwing parties for him.

Political giving by the movie studios and other big corporations would be virtually unaffected by the proposal to limit bundling that is currently under consideration in the Senate. The measure not only would limit direct contributions from PACs, but it also would prohibit bundling by PACs, political parties and lobbyists.

Corporate executives would not be prohibited from bundling under the Senate bill. Greg Kubiak, an aide to Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.) who helped to draft the proposed legislation, said any law restricting this activity by people within corporations would surely be declared unconstitutional.

“The question is, when are they being citizens or when are they being special interest advocates who are trying to get around the PAC spending limits?” he says. “It’s a very narrow line.”

Nevertheless, the bill would probably change the nature of movie-studio fund-raisers somewhat because the executives would be prohibited from raising money using corporate resources, such as company stationery, clerical personnel, facilities and catering services. In addition, top executives would be prohibited from throwing fund-raising parties wherever more than half of the guests are employees of one corporation.

Reformers argue that these restrictions are essential to keep corporations from relying more heavily on bundling once Congress restricts PAC contributions. But critics insist the legislation would unfairly strangle PACs, which get most of their money from small contributors, and at the same time would do nothing to stem the flow of big checks from rich corporate executives.

As one fund-raiser who opposes the bill puts it, “The average contribution to the Machinists Union PAC is $58. That’s what we’re going to wipe out so that vice presidents of corporations can continue to make big contributions of $2,000.”

EXECUTIVE CONTRIBUTIONS OUTPACE PACS Contributions to congressional candidates

1981-82 1983-84 1985-86 1987-88 1989-90* Disney Executives $2,500 $0 $54,765 $105,500 $141,365 PAC 0 0 21,350 52,000 36,969 Warner Executives 61,500 22,250 37,650 59,050 120,010 PAC 48,950 66,600 73,100 71,516 65,850 Paramount Executives 9,000 13,750 29,500 41,850 40,550 PAC 0 34,800 78,100 79,550 93,800 MCA/Universal Executives 19,285 21,200 84,296 213,711 57,550 PAC 38,450 58,000 130,156 137,211 127,950

* Figures for the 1989-1990 election cycle include contributions through March 31, 1990.