Some run businesses where the receptionists answer the phones simply by stating the street address. Others have automated answering services, followed by a couple rounds of secretaries.

Last month one of them bought Rockefeller Center.

From a Rockefeller.

The 69 members of Northwestern’s Board of Trustees are affluent and powerful people. And, with their donations to federal campaigns growing, they also are assuming an increasingly large role in the political process.

With George W. Bush inaugurated Saturday after the most expensive presidential race in history, the trustees’ campaign contributions provide a purple-tinted snapshot of money’s controversial role in politics.

According to research done by The Daily, the NU trustees and their spouses gave more than $860,000 to federal candidates, parties and political action committees in the 1999-2000 election cycle, with the majority of the money going to Republicans. The sum is more than double what The Daily found in similar research in 1996, reflecting a massive nationwide increase in political contributions.

From January 1999 through June 2000, total political fund raising at the federal level increased to more than $1.6 billion, up from about $1.2 billion during the same period four years ago, according to campaign finance watchdog groups.

For this report, The Daily analyzed contributions made by the NU trustees during the past two years and talked with trustees about their views on contributing money to politics.

Despite maintaining a collectively low profile at the university, the NU trustees can be influential in policy, almost acting like a corporate board. The trustees are chosen based on what they have done for NU in the past and what they can do for NU in the future, whether through their experience or their connections in business or philanthropy.

Their greatest power is hiring or firing the university president, but administrators often seek their input — and heed their advice — on a variety of issues. With parties seeking their money with equal vigor — and succeeding, to the tune of $864,143 — how important are their political contributions?

TRUSTEES AS CONTRIBUTORS

In researching trustee contributions, The Daily analyzed a Center for Responsive Politics database containing information found in publicly available Federal Election Commission contribution reports. CRP is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that studies the effect of money in politics.

Of NU’s 69 board members, 56 were recorded as making some kind of federal campaign contribution.

Contributions to Republicans outweighed contributions to Democrats, $448,151 to $332,910. The gap would have been far wider if not for trustee Neil Bluhm.

Bluhm, the co-founder of JMB Realty, gave nearly $209,500 to Democratic candidates in the election cycle, making him the single biggest political contributor among the trustees. His gifts to various branches of the Democratic Party included one $50,000 contribution, three $25,000 contributions, one $15,000 contribution and four $10,000 contributions.

The Chicago Sun-Times’ “Rich List,” a list of the Chicago area’s 40 richest people published in late November, estimated Bluhm’s wealth at $800 million.

Excluding Bluhm’s donations, trustees supported Republican candidates much more heavily.

• Chairman of the Board Patrick Ryan Sr., his wife, Shirley Ann Ryan, and his son Patrick Ryan Jr., also a trustee, gave more than $80,600 combined, mostly to Republicans. The elder Ryan’s Rich List worth: $1.15 billion.

• Trustee Jerry M. Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago Bulls and White Sox and a partner in the land investment company Bojer Financial, and his wife, Martyl, contributed $48,500 in 1999-2000. Although the majority of this money went to Republican causes, a large amount also went to Democrats.

• Former Quaker Oats Chairman William Smithburg and his wife, Maria, gave more than $47,150, almost all to Republicans.

• Harold B. Smith, Illinois Tool Works executive and former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, gave $46,500 to Republicans. The “Rich List” named his family’s worth fourth-highest in the Chicago area: $4.3 billion.

• J. Landis Martin, the CEO of Titanium Metals Corp and NL Industries in Denver, and his wife, Sharon, gave more than $44,100, almost all to Republicans.

Determining who gave what is made difficult by the FEC’s disclosure procedures for parties and candidates. There is no uniform system of recording donor’s names, because it is hard to learn the total contributions from a single person.

For example, trustee A. Steven Crown — whose family, along with New York developer Tishman Speyer, purchased Rockefeller Center for $1.85 billion in December — is identified in different FEC reports as: “Mr. A. Crown,” “A. Stephen Crown,” “A. Steven Crown” and “Steven Crown.”

As a result, it is nearly impossible to distinguish between the political contributions of the Ryans, elder and younger. In an interview, the younger Ryan estimated he had given less than $10,000 in this election cycle.

Information about contributors’ employers can vary as well. Candidates or political action committees can identify the employer themselves or ask the contributor for the information.

Two $1,000 contributions to Alaska Sen. Ted Steven’s re-election campaign last March from a “Patrick G. Ryan” listed NU as Ryan’s employer — the only contributions from a trustee to do so.

But the younger Ryan, who said he was surprised at the designation, said neither he nor his father would have asked that the university be listed.

With no guidelines, donors can be evasive when reporting employer information. Lobbyists, for example, might list groups they work on behalf of instead of the lobbying firms that employ them.

On the other hand, if a candidate or PAC enters the information incorrectly, donors can appear as if they are trying to curry favor when in reality they are not.

THE RECEIVERS

Political parties and their related committees took home the most from the trustees — several hundreds of thousands of dollars each — and certain political candidates also directly benefited.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Bradley received $36,500, the largest amount given by the trustees to any one candidate. President Bush received $31,000 from trustees in his successful White House bid.

The most money trustees donated to a congressional candidate was a total of $27,400 to Chicago-area Republican Mark Kirk. Kirk defeated Democrat Lauren Beth Gash, who received $1,250 from trustees, in the close race to succeed retiring Rep. John Porter in the 10th Congressional District. Both campaigns received millions of dollars from the candidates’ respective state and national parties.

The 10th District includes some of the country’s wealthiest suburbs, including Winnetka and many trustees’ homes.

Not all of the trustees’ contributions went to candidates or parties. They gave more than $83,000 to PACs during the election cycle, with most of the money going to PACs that strongly supported Republican causes and candidates.

Led by House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the Keep Our Majority PAC received more trustee money than any other PAC. Six trustees and one spouse gave a total of $15,500 to the committee.

Trustees contributed to only two PACs that gave the majority of their money to Democratic candidates. The Dedicated Americans for the Senate and House PAC, established by Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, received $1,000 from trustee William Aldinger. The City Political Action Committee received $1,000 from Reinsdorf.

In interviews with THE DAILY, trustees said they examined a variety of factors when choosing to give to particular candidates or groups.

“The most important thing to me was not ideology or party affiliation,” said trustee Sherman Lewis. “I was looking for people I felt had integrity or character or stood for something.

“Given what we’ve been through in the recent past, I would rather have somebody (w
hom) I can know where they stand and what they stand for, and that they have character and integrity.”

Philip Block, husband of trustee Judith Block, said he and his wife look at candidates’ integrity but also at “their philosophical backgrounds, the things they support.” He said this kind of judgment in political contributing would likely explain the NU trustees’ leaning toward Republicans.

“There’s a general inclination toward Republican ideas, in terms of smaller government in Washington and letting the states do more on a local basis,” he said.

TRUSTEES TOGETHER?

Though most trustees were Republican donors, one Democrat who drew their attention and their checks was Bradley.

Bradley received more than $1.8 million from Illinois donors — mostly from the Chicago area — in this election cycle. Only New York, California and New Jersey donors gave more to Bradley.

On March 4, 1999, Bradley took in $1.5 million at his kickoff fund-raiser in East Brunswick, N.J. Plates went for $1,000 a piece, and 1,500 people gathered in the Hilton Hotel ballroom to eat and cheer for the candidate.

On that day and the following day, his campaign bookkeepers recorded $1,000 contributions from nine NU trustees and three spouses. University President Henry Bienen and his wife, Leigh, a senior lecturer in NU’s Law School, each gave $1,000 on March 5 as well.

When Bradley held a fund-raising dinner in Chicago on March 12, four more trustees and one more spouse gave $1,000 the same week. The event at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers raised $1.2 million. Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow — a former trustee who has been given the honorary NU “life trustee” status — was co-chairman.

There was a similar coincidence July 26-28, when nine trustees and two spouses gave a total of $44,000 to the Republican National Committee.

At first glance, their contributions look connected, as if the trustees coordinated their giving. But NU trustees deny such “bundling.”

“Some of us know each other for different reasons outside the university,” trustee Warren Batts said. “I don’t think anyone’s ever gone down the trustee list (and solicited contributions). I think that would be poor taste.”

The younger Ryan, who also said trustees would not use their trustee positions to raise funds, said the public’s perception of fund-raising dinners is overblown: “It’s a more upscale version of what they do at (Veterans of Foreign Wars’ halls) around the country.”

With hundreds of people attending, the candidate just shakes hands, speaks and receives the cheers of the crowd, he said. “No news is made.”

Sherman Lewis, who said he helped raise money for Bradley in New York City, said a political fund-raiser was “no different from any other kind of fund-raiser.”

“It’s just like a charity. When Bill Bradley had a fund-raiser here, I solicited a lot of my friends,” he said.

Lewis, however, said he did not think any NU trustees were among those he solicited. He also said he has “never really been lobbied hard” for political contributions by anyone other than the politicians themselves.

In the case of the national committee contributions, they were made in the days leading up to the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Convention time is a major fund-raising period for parties.

THE SYSTEM

Each of the trustees who agreed to be interviewed supported reform, echoing trustee Warren Batts’ sentiment that “the campaign financing system is rotten, but I don’t know of anything better.”

High-profile calls for campaign finance reform, such as in the presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who sought the Republican nomination, have increased with the growth of money in politics. But change has been slow to arrive.

After years of little regulation, the Federal Election Campaign Act and other pieces of legislation were passed in the 1970s to limit, patrol and disclose federal political contributions. The FEC opened its doors in 1975 to enforce the laws.

The last major changes to the act came in 1979, but loopholes have been opening ever since.

One of the biggest has been “soft money” contributions to political parties that are not subject to any limits. More than $457 million of soft money was reported to the FEC in this election cycle.

Bluhm and the elder Ryan each made several large soft-money contributions during the past two years.

In Congress, filibusters by Senate Republicans stopped McCain’s major reform bills every year from 1995 to 1999. But today McCain and Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin plan to give reform another try and introduce a new bill.

One of the crucial factors for the bill’s success will be support from the newly inaugurated President Bush, who has said he will support a reform bill “so long as business and labor are treated equally.”

Like McCain, several NU trustees said the system needs much reform.

“It seems to me the major flaw is that it was put in place quite a few years ago, and parts of it are quite antiquated,” Batts said.

He said raising the amount of money that individuals can legally give to candidates in an election cycle might decrease soft money contributions.

The current $2,000 limit ($1,000 earmarked for the primary election and $1,000 for the general election) “almost forces you to look to put soft money into some kind of fund” that would then give the money to a candidate, Batts said. “The system almost forces you to stand on your head.”

The younger Ryan agreed.

“If (the limits) were $10,000, people wouldn’t have any more influence. Bill Bradley still won’t know who I am,” he said. “Ten grand isn’t going to buy any influence.”

Batts also said new disclosure laws should be put in place.

“I don’t think there is any way to effectively police the limits and all the kinds of things that go on during the campaign,” he said. “The disclosure laws should be a lot more immediate and transparent and thorough, with very severe penalties for not complying, both for the contributor and for the candidate.”

Strict penalties, however, have been hard to come by at the FEC — partly because of Capitol Hill’s gridlock and partly because of the FEC itself.

A 1998 PricewaterhouseCoopers audit of the agency found the FEC to be well managed and to have increased productivity “in the face of increasing workloads,” but it also said the FEC hadn’t caught up with the times.

The audit criticized the FEC’s “antiquated paper-based” coding and lack of specific categories of violations. With these problems, it said the number of enforcement cases the FEC has to handle “appear to exceed” the agency’s capacity.

Watchdog groups also have attacked the agency’s congressional control.

Penalties are levied at the FEC by its six commissioners — three Republicans and three Democrats, all appointed by Congress. When the commissioners vote on penalties, they often split along party lines and then nothing is decided, watchdogs say.

Charles Lewis, director of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, ripped the FEC in a December speech. “It’s always a 3-3 tie. Too bad!” he said. “No subpoena. And if a politician gets in trouble, he or she merely pays the fine with campaign money. What kind of deterrent is that?”

Lewis used even stronger language in a book, “The Buying of the President,” published last year.

“The FEC is completely captive to the politicians,” he wrote, “and would be regarded as a national embarrassment if anyone cared.”

“A GREAT DISCONNECT”?

Should anyone care? About the system, about the number of zeroes on the contribution checks, about who gets what?

The NU trustees, like thousands of people across the country, have opened their wallets to join in politics’ big money game. Winning or losing isn’t just the result of a good stump speech anymore — more often it’s the bank statement that makes or breaks a campaign.

And while the trustees lean right politically, students seem to be leaning left.

In NU Admissions Office surveys during the past several years, incoming freshmen co
nsistently have identified themselves as more liberal than conservative.

Answering the 1999 survey, 43.8 percent of freshmen said their political orientation was “far left” or “liberal” while only 20.3 percent said “far right” or “conservative.” Another 35.9 percent said “middle of the road.”

Even though the trustees make decisions that touch on national political issues, one board member questioned whether trustees and students really differed in what they wanted for the university.

When people think of liberals and conservatives, “the mainstream characterizations of things are probably naïve,” the younger Ryan said.

When the board approved same-sex partner benefits in 1995 for NU employees, he said the trustees showed they could act in ways their political contributions would not lead one to expect.

“You can’t generalize about trustees, and you can’t generalize about students,” he said. “NU went ahead of many companies. Why? Because it was the right thing for the university.”

Despite the numbers in campaign finance reports and freshman survey results, Ryan said he did not see “a great disconnect” between what the trustees and the student body wanted for NU.

Ryan said the nature of the trustees’ meetings and their agreements by consensus allow them to get beyond partisanship and to be sensitive to the wants of students, faculty and other segments of the NU community.

“Trustees are not very partisan people by nature,” he said. In their meetings, the trustees “don’t bring ideology in. They bring experience in.”