Lockyer to Return Oracle’s Donations

Five days after quipping, “I was wishing there was more,” about campaign donations from Oracle Corp., Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said he would return the $50,000 he has taken from the company since 2000.

Lockyer said Wednesday that the donations would not influence his investigation of the company’s $95-million software licensing contract with the state, but returning the money will help “assure” the public that his investigation is “fair, nonpartisan and nonpolitical.”

Two weeks ago, Lockyer began investigating whether any civil or criminal laws were broken in the state’s signing of the contract with Oracle a year ago.

Republicans have questioned whether Lockyer, a Democrat, can be aggressive and unbiased in his investigation.

State auditors say the no-bid contract--touted by Oracle and its business partner, Logicon, as a way to save the state more than $100million over 10 years--could cost the state $6 million to $41 million more than it would spend otherwise.

The contract was signed, the auditor concluded, in spite of surveys that showed little demand for Oracle products within California’s bureaucracy.

Two top administration officials have resigned in the fallout over the contract and a third has been suspended.

Republican candidate for governor Bill Simon Jr. has made an issue of the $25,000 donation Oracle gave Gov. Gray Davis several days after the contract was signed.

The check was passed from an Oracle lobbyist to Davis’ chief of e-government in a Sacramento restaurant.

Gray Davis on Wednesday said he had not decided whether to return some or all of the $45,000 in campaign donations he has received from Oracle in the past year.

“I’m going to wait until all the facts are in on Oracle,” Davis said. “I’ve asked [Lockyer] to give me his recommendations on what can be done differently in the future. I don’t rule it in and I don’t rule it out.”

A joint legislative audit committee has held two days of hearings to determine how and why the contract moved through the state bureaucracy. It will resume Tuesday with witnesses from the departments of Finance and General Services. After that, the hearings are to continue May 21.

“We’re really interested in, how did this deal get pushed?” said Assemblyman Dean Florez (D-Shafter). “Who pushed it? And who were the decision makers who relied on their information almost blindly?”