Davis Reports $13.2 Million in Campaign Gifts for 1999

Gov. Gray Davis tapped moneyed interests from big oil to organized labor to gambling operations to raise $13.2 million last year--with some donations coming from entities that had bills pending in Sacramento.

The governor’s year-end 1999 campaign finance statement Friday showed six-figure contributions from 11 individuals and entities in the last six months of 1999. Scores of donors gave him $10,000 or more as he collected a dizzying average of $1.1 million a month.

The largest single contribution was for $200,000, courtesy of David J. Shimmon. Shimmon is a multimillionaire from Los Altos and president of U.S. Filters, a Palm Desert firm that is a major player in California water issues and a large landowner in Imperial County. U.S. Filters gave Davis an additional $50,000.

The $13.2 million is a record sum for a governor in a nonelection year. Davis, who will not face voters until 2002, ended 1999 with almost $14.5 million in the bank--an amount to give any would-be challengers pause.

The year-end report details donations in 1999’s final six months, when the governor was deciding which legislation to sign and which bills to veto.

* A lobbying group representing nursing homes gave $20,000 to Davis in July as the Legislature was considering a bill to increase enforcement against errant nursing homes and raise fines for negligence. Davis vetoed it.

* A half-dozen major health insurance companies--including Aetna, Blue Cross and Cigna--donated more than $200,000. Davis signed some legislation opposed by HMOs and vetoed other measures.

* Three top executives from Cisco Systems gave Davis a combined $75,000. In his budget proposal for the 2000-2001 fiscal year, Davis calls for a light-rail station to serve Cisco’s proposed $1-billion facility south of San Jose.

* Surprisingly, one of Davis’ largest donors was Fireman’s Fund, a major insurance firm, which gave him $174,000. Davis so angered insurance companies when he signed legislation expanding the right to sue them that they have placed measures on the March 7 ballot to nullify the laws.

“The decisions that the governor makes are based on one criterion and one criterion only: Is this in the best interest of the state?” Davis’ spokesman Michael Bustamante said.

Davis continues to draw heavily from organized labor, long a cornerstone of Democratic support. Political action committees controlled by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers gave Davis a combined $103,000, and PACs controlled by the Service Employees International Union gave him $100,000

In a reflection of his effort to portray himself as a moderate, Davis received even larger sums from business that generally favor Republicans. Indeed, major contributors who financed the losing 1998 gubernatorial campaign of former Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren now belong to Davis’ stable of donors.

The Irvine Co., long a major contributor to Republican candidates, gave Lungren $300,000 in his losing 1998 campaign. The large Orange County landowner gave the Democratic governor $20,000 last year.

Trucking company owner Steve Beneto, who gave $100,000 to Lungren’s campaign, gave Davis $101,000.

Davis’ budget last year included $4 million for an autism research center at UC Davis. That’s a cause dear to Beneto, who has a son with the condition.

Atlantic Richfield Co., perennially among the largest donors to state politics, gave Davis $96,500 last year. Davis has made supportive statements about BP Amoco’s effort to purchase Arco.

In one of his early actions, Davis ordered oil companies to remove the gasoline additive MTBE, a decision that affects all major oil companies. Developed by Arco, MTBE has helped clean the air, but it pollutes water. Davis gave the companies until 2002 to phase it out.

Davis also took $50,000 from agribusiness giant Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. Archer-Daniels is a major producer of ethanol, a substance that could end up being used as a replacement for MTBE in California’s gasoline stock.

Gambling was among the most far-reaching issues Davis dealt with last year. He negotiated a compact with California Indian tribes that would permit them to expand casinos on tribal land. Voters will settle the issue with Proposition 1A on the March 7 ballot.

Davis received $285,000 in the last six months of 1999 from gambling sources. However, the bulk of the money came from racetracks and card clubs, which in the past opposed the expansion of gambling on Indian reservations.

The largest donation from a gambling source came from Santa Anita racetrack, which gave Davis $95,000. Davis received only one donation of $15,000 from an Indian tribe involved in gambling.

Davis dropped his latest campaign finance filing in the mail on Monday, the deadline for having the document postmarked. However, the report, sent via certified mail, did not arrive at the secretary of state’s office until Friday.

Earlier, Davis declined Secretary of State Bill Jones’ request that statewide officeholders file their reports electronically, allowing them to be posted on the Internet. Only three statewide officeholders--Jones, Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush and Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer--filed their reports electronically.

Jones called the four-day delay between the deadline and the report’s arrival in Sacramento “a long time,” given “the importance of that report, with respect to who he is and the amount that was raised.”

Bustamante declined to discuss Davis’ decision to mail the report, referring such questions to the governor’s campaign manager, Garry South. South did not return The Times’ call.

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Times staff writers Julie Tamaki, Miguel Bustillo and Virginia Ellis contributed to this story.