8 Democratic Backers Accused of Spending Violations

Eight wealthy Democratic contributors were accused of violating the legal limit on campaign contributions before the 1990 election in a complaint filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission.

Among those named was Frederick W. Field of Los Angeles, heir to the Marshall Field fortune and a film producer with MCA, Universal and Interscope.

The complaint, filed by the Center for Responsive Politics, a group advocating campaign finance reform, was prompted by a Times story last year which revealed that wealthy contributors often ignore the law that prohibits anyone from making contributions in excess of $25,000 a year.

Common Cause, another reform group, filed an FEC complaint late last year against the contributors named in The Times story. The commission is known to be investigating the Common Cause complaint, although FEC officials never discuss their investigations.

Like The Times, the Center for Responsive Politics gleaned the information for their complaints from disclosure reports that the candidates and political organizations are required to file with the FEC.

Ellen Miller, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said that the group’s complaint against eight Democratic contributors is part of an effort to pressure the FEC into enforcing the campaign laws more aggressively.

All eight people named in the complaint also made sizable contributions to state Democratic Party committees that are exempt from federal election laws.

Under law, no individual is permitted to contribute more than $25,000 a year to federal candidates or the political action committees that support federal candidates. In addition, no individual may contribute more than $2,000 to each candidate in any election cycle or more than $20,000 a year to party committees.

Of the eight contributors named in the complaint, seven were accused of violating the $25,000 limit and one was charged with giving more than $2,000 to a single candidate.

The complaint said that Field made $32,750 in contributions in 1990--or $7,750 more than the legal limit. Field also gave at least $105,000 to Democratic committees that do not come under the federal law.

Others named in the complaint were:

--Morton L. Mandel of Cleveland, chief executive officer of Premier Industrial Corp., who allegedly made $32,500 in contributions in 1989, including $30,000 to two Democratic Party committees that come under federal law.

--Lewis Rudin of New York, a real estate developer and head of Rudin Manufacturing and Rudin Management Co., who allegedly made $28,000 in contributions in 1989 and $28,140 in 1990.

--Mark B. Dayton of Minneapolis, a member of the family that owns Dayton Department stores, an officer of Vermillion Investments and a former Democratic Senate candidate, who allegedly made $27,100 in contributions in 1989.

--Richard J. Dennis, a Chicago attorney and fund-raiser who serves as an officer in Richard J. Dennis Co. and C&D; Commodities, who allegedly gave $27,000 in 1989.

--Diana T. MacArthur of Bethesda, Md., chief executive officer of Dynamac Corp., an environmental services firm, who allegedly made $26,475 in contributions in 1990.

--Jerome Kohlberg Jr. of New York, partner in Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts, a leading corporate takeover firm, who made $26,000 in contributions in 1990. His partner, Henry R. Kravis, made contributions of $56,711 in 1988, according to The Times study.

--Robert E. Rubin of New York, partner and vice chairman of the investment banking firm of Goldman Sachs & Co., who gave $4,000 to the 1990 campaign of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

The Common Cause complaint, based on The Times story, cited violations by corporate buyout specialists Kravis, Ronald O. Perelman and Harold Simmons; Kravis’ father, Raymond; Ira Riklis, son of corporate raider Meshulam Riklis; Dwayne O. Andreas, chairman of Archer Daniels Midland, and his wife, Dorothy Inez Andreas.