I wrote my sports column “Miller Time” for three
years, but you can only go grocery shopping with the women’s
water polo team so many times. I’ve wanted to write about
UCLA in a different light, in a way that makes news more
accessible. So here it is, and it will be here every
Monday.
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Gwyneth Paltrow donated $1,500 to John Kerry’s
presidential campaign, while Tom Hanks contributed $2,000 to the
Democratic hopeful’s run at the White House.
I didn’t glean those juicy tidbits from a pictorial in US
Weekly, or from an essay in the New Republic ““ I found them
at FundRace.org, a Web site that makes political gossiping
easy.
But, FundRace is not supposed to be about spreading gossip,
it’s about increasing the level of transparency and
accountability in presidential campaign finance. FundRace uses the
Internet to make the Federal Election Commission’s records of
campaign contributions accessible to the general public with an
easy-to-use, searchable database.
Presidential campaign contributions require the submission of
personal information, which becomes part of the public record,
making anonymous contributions impossible, and thus limiting the
influence of the wealthy.
A decade ago, this information would have remained locked away
from the general public, but the Internet has liberated it from
musty archives. FundRace, which was created by Eyebeam, a New
York-based, non-profit organization that specializes in arts and
science research, is not the only Web site to use FEC data.
OpenSecrets.org is a Web site that allows users to look up
personal campaign contribution data and provides data on donor
demographics and top contributors for each campaign. In fact, the
FEC makes the same information available on its own Web site,
albeit in a less concise and user-friendly manner. But FundRace is
the only Web site that features a database viewable by zip code,
making searches of your neighborhood a cinch.
“I think the Internet is important in terms of getting
information to people,” said Michael Frumin, a research
fellow at Eyebeam who programmed FundRace. “I think FundRace
was one of very few examples where somebody took open information
and combined it with information with unlimited reach.”
In the past, you could have gotten this personal contribution
data without the Internet, but it meant requesting indexes directly
from the FEC, said FEC spokesman Ian Stirton.
Accordingly, I wondered whether Stirton’s job has been
made less tedious by Web sites like OpenSecrets and FundRace.
“I don’t talk about tediousness,” Stirton
said. “I spent a lot of time looking up
information.”
Stirton would have continued to spend a lot of time looking up
information if not for recent regulation of campaign finance law.
The 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law streamlined
“soft money” contributions to party committees and
moved the emphasis to “hard money” contributions to
specific campaigns. “Hard money” contributions are
exactly what the Web sites track. The McCain-Feingold reform also
increased the amount that can be given directly to a single
campaign from $1,000 to $2,000.
Sure enough, type in the name of any famous person you can think
of, and chances are that person contributed the maximum to a
campaign.
That reminds me, what about all those celebrities? The first
thing I did when I discovered FundRace was search for every famous
person I could think of.
Quincy Jones donated $2,000 to five different Democratic
presidential hopefuls ““ talk about playing the field.
And now I can report that Martin Sheen, who plays Democratic
President Josiah Bartlet on “The West Wing,” is a
Democrat ““ he gave $2,000 to Dick Gephardt’s campaign.
Dennis Haysbert, who plays Democratic President David Palmer on
“24,” is also a Democrat. He donated $2,000 apiece to
Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean. Where are the Republican fake
presidents?
After my insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip died down, I
typed in my old zip code and searched for campaign contributors
from my neighborhood back home. This may be FundRace’s most
engrossing feature. If your parents like gossiping about your
neighbor’s alcoholism or extra-marital affairs, then they
will enjoy the snooping capabilities that these Web sites
provide.
But again, that’s (kind of) not the point.
“I wouldn’t say what we wanted to do is take
something and turn it into gossip,” Frumin said. “We
didn’t want to take advantage of the fact that it is
gossipy.”
Besides the celebrities, you may be interested to know whom your
educators will be supporting in this election. Have an inkling one
of your political science professors is a Dennis Kucinich fanatic?
Well, this is the way to find out.
Also, some notable UC regents made their way onto the
contribution list. The Chairman of the Board of Regents Gerald
Parsky contributed $2,000 to President Bush’s campaign and
$50,000 to the Republican National Committee over the past two
years (Under McCain-Feingold, a maximum annual contribution of
$25,000 to a national party committee is allowed). Vice Chairman of
Regents Richard Blum donated $2,000 to Kerry’s campaign and
$2,000 to the DNC this year.
Former Regent Haim Saban donated $1,000 to Kerry’s
campaign and he also contributed at least $1,000 to the failed
presidential nomination bids of five other Democrats. But before
you start calling Saban a lefty, know that he also gave $2,000 to
Bush.
So the next time someone makes a key decision regarding your
education ““ like raising fees ““ you may like to know
what his political leanings are. This is one way to find out.
Despite their developers’ high-minded intentions, these
Web sites will probably not be used for much hard-hitting
politicking; they will mostly be used for gossip-mongering. But
even if the public gains just a tiny bit of political awareness
from the Web sites, then they have done their job, because it is
important for the public to start to think about where campaign
money comes from and where it goes.
While you check to see whether your high school sweetheart is
still a Republican, undoubtedly you will notice that both FundRace
and OpenSecrets display her address. This has drawn the ire of some
privacy advocates (and your ex-girlfriend).
Beth Givens of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-partisan
consumer advocacy group, said the Web sites cater to idle
snooping.
“I know someone who contributed who is a psychologist, and
she works with the mentally disturbed,” Givens said.
“Because of her work she deals with individuals who she
doesn’t want to find her address. She doesn’t want them
to find her home.”
But back at the FEC, public record is public record, and workers
there seem too busy to fiddle around with Web sites like
FundRace.
“I don’t check up celebrities myself,” Stirton
said. “I don’t have time, nor am I
interested.”
He’ll leave the politics to you.
E-mail Miller at dmiller@media.ucla.edu. His column runs
Mondays.