Welfare Proposal War Chest Grows : Initiative: Campaign for Wilson’s plan collects $1.3 million. Critics had pressured corporate donors to not contribute.

The campaign to pass Gov. Pete Wilson’s welfare initiative reported Monday that it has collected nearly $1.3 million to promote the proposal despite attacks by opponents on some of its major corporate contributors.

With Wilson continuing to make personal pleas to business leaders for contributions, campaign officials disclosed that corporations and their executives donated nearly half of the $453,000 the campaign raised in the last three months. Likewise, about a third of the $844,000 raised in the first quarter of the year came from corporate donors.

Among those who contributed to the campaign during the latest reporting period were aerospace giants Northrop Corp. and Rockwell International, which each donated $25,000, and a major computer firm, Hewlett-Packard, which gave $20,000.

Campaign officials said many of the contributions came after advocates for children and poor people attempted to “blackmail and intimidate” corporate contributors with a newspaper advertisement that focused attention on the executive salaries paid by specific donors.

In a news conference and full-page newspaper advertisement, opponents to the welfare initiative had accused the “rich” corporate interests of “attacking the poor” and complained that the corporate executives who were earning millions of dollars were supporting a proposal that would reduce government aid to poor people.

The two-pronged initiative, which will be voted on in the November election, gives the governor additional powers to control state spending and reduces the cash grants given primarily to poor mothers and children through the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program. It initially cuts the basic cash grant--now $663 a month for a mother and two children--by 10% and then another 15% six months later for every family that includes an able-bodied adult.

“Our opponents know they can’t win an argument against budget and welfare reform on the merits, so they resorted to unethical tactics,” said George Gorton, director of United California Taxpayers, the organization formed by Wilson to promote the initiative.

Despite Wilson’s successful fund-raising, opponents of the initiative said they would continue to attack the corporate donors “who seem to have no sympathy or sense to what the initiative will do to hungry and homeless children.”

“They’re (the corporate donors) not giving this money for charity; they expect something in return,” said Steve Hopcraft, a spokesman for Campaign for a Fair Share, a grass-roots organization formed to oppose the initiative.

Hopcraft said the “something” they expect is Wilson’s steadfast opposition to a corporate tax increase, which many Democrats have advocated as a means of eliminating billions of dollars in budget shortages.

He said the business interests would prefer to see cuts in aid to the poor instead of increases in their taxes.

Many of the corporate contributors disputed his contention, saying they believe the governor should have additional legal tools to reduce state spending.

“We supported the proposal because the governor sees it as necessary to bring state spending under control,” said Jean Horwatt, Rockwell’s director for state government relations.

Gorton said the corporate contributions have been overemphasized.