Democrats Release Another Blockbuster

Los Angeles film producer Steve Bing has given $5 million to the Democratic National Committee, top party officials said Friday, confirming a second multimillion-dollar gift by an entertainment industry figure that would be prohibited under a campaign reform about to become law.

The disclosure of Bing’s donation came a day after the party announced that Hollywood mogul Haim Saban of Los Angeles had given a record-breaking sum of $7 million. Both contributions are to help pay for a new party office building in Washington, expected to cost $32 million.

The gifts, which Democrats said were far larger than any previous contribution to the party, are also thought to exceed anything given to Republicans on a national level.

The Bing donation, first reported Friday by the New York Times, was confirmed by Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. In a prepared statement, McAuliffe said he was “extremely grateful” for the support the committee had received from major donors to finance a $32-million project that the party hopes will help with fund-raising and outreach for years to come.

Bing’s office declined to comment.

Bing, 36, is the scion of a wealthy Los Angeles family that has given major donations to Stanford University and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

He has been an increasingly active Democratic donor in recent years. Bing gave more than $700,000 during the 1999-2000 campaign to help Democratic candidates for president and Congress, according to federal election data kept by the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

Bing has worked as a writer, director and producer, but his greatest success has come as a writer of comedies. He co-wrote the upcoming Jerry Bruckheimer comedy “Down and Under,” about a pair of childhood friends who are charged with taking mob money to Australia but lose it to a kangaroo.

He also wrote or co-wrote “You Need Therapy” and “Why Men Shouldn’t Marry,” both in development at major studios.

His first break in Hollywood came as a co-writer of the 1980s Chuck Norris films “Missing in Action” and “Missing in Action 2.”

He directed a straight-to-video erotic thriller, “Every Breath,” and produced the upcoming independent films “Without Charlie” and “Night at the Golden Eagle.” He served as executive producer for the recent Sylvester Stallone film “Get Carter.”

Bing may be better known, however, for his relationship with actress Elizabeth Hurley, who has claimed that Bing is the father of her soon-to-be-born child.

Bing has publicly questioned this assertion, issuing a statement that their relationship wasn’t “exclusive.” This has made Bing a staple of the British tabloids for the last several months. One, the Mirror, went so far as to dub him “Bing Laden” on a front-page wanted poster and published his office phone number so readers could voice their opinions about the dispute.

Bing has since sued the Mirror and the Daily Mail for libel.

The donations by Bing and Saban came to light in the same week that a hotly debated campaign finance bill limiting large donations to the parties won final congressional approval.

“These are the biggest campaign contributions that I’ve ever heard of, by multiples of three or four times,” said Fred Wertheimer, a longtime lobbyist for campaign contribution limits in Washington.

He called donations of such magnitude “very dangerous to the political system,” contending that they make politicians too dependent on big-money donors. Critics of contribution limits reply that donors are simply exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and political participation.

Previously, the largest known donation to either of the major national parties was a $1.7-million gift in 1994 from Amway Corp. to a Republican committee.

Under the campaign finance bill, which President Bush has pledged to sign, an individual donor could give a national party committee no more than $25,000 a year.

The law would not take effect until after November’s elections, meaning the parties could continue to solicit large contributions until then.

Although the Saban and Bing donations appear unprecedented for the national parties, they are not groundbreaking when compared with political contributions at the state level.

In California, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians reported giving $15.9 million in 1998 to the campaign to pass a gaming initiative, state disclosure records show. In the same year, Philip Morris Cos. Inc. gave $7.9 million to a campaign opposing a California tobacco tax.

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Times staff writers Dan Morain in Sacramento and Rachel Abramowitz in Los Angeles contributed to this report.