Top donor gives big all along political spectrum

David Nierenberg is among the top individual donors to the state Democratic Party and the biggest contributor to the Legacy Fund, a political-action committee that has benefited Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire.

He also was a national finance chairman of Republican Mitt Romney's unsuccessful campaign for president. And he's given the maximum allowed to such Republicans as Secretary of State Sam Reed, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon and presidential candidate John McCain.

Most big individual contributors tend to be passionate partisans with their money — "ideological true-believers," as former GOP Chairman Chris Vance calls them.

Not so with Nierenberg, an investment manager from Camas, Clark County. He said he contributes to "independent thinkers who make up their own minds issue-by-issue and do not rigidly adhere to partisan or ideological positions."

Still, Nierenberg — who has written, along with his wife, Patricia, campaign checks totaling $466,000 in the past five years — gives mostly to Democrats because, he said, they are more socially liberal.

People like the Nierenbergs are particularly important in Washington politics because of an unusual twist in state law. It allows individuals who've already given the legal maximum to a candidate to send unlimited amounts to a state party, which can pass along up to $2.63 million — based on a voter-approved formula — to candidates for state office.

Nierenberg and his wife have given $110,000 in the past five years to the state Democratic Party.

Hard vs. soft money

These contributions from individuals are known as "hard" money and can be spent directly on election campaigns. They fall under different rules than "soft" money contributions — or unlimited amounts from unions, corporations, tribes and party groups — which are supposed to be spent on administrative and party-building needs, not advocating for a candidate's election.

This quirk in Washington law, uncommon in the other 49 states, is a key reason why "rich individuals are the most-prized fundraising targets in Washington state politics," Vance said.

It has helped the state Democratic Party become the biggest contributor to Gregoire's two campaigns for governor. The party has written checks for $1.85 million to Gregoire — 40 percent of all the hard money it has collected since 2003.

In that same period, the party received just over $1 million from 54 individuals, including Nierenberg and his wife, who had already donated directly to Gregoire's campaigns.

The state Republican Party, which has lagged behind in fundraising, contributed far less in the past five years — $420,000 — to gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. But the state GOP was still the biggest donor to Rossi's 2004 campaign and is again this year.

It's all legal, as long as contributors don't try to earmark their money for a specific candidate.

But "it's skirting the spirit" of the state's $1,600 limit on contributions directly from individuals to candidates, said Ed Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan group in Helena, Mont., that tracks campaign finance in all 50 states.

Nierenberg, who has been appointed in recent years to the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors and the Washington State Investment Board, said he hasn't sought any favors for his contributions.

"I don't ask for anything other than people use their best judgment," he said.

He's careful, he added, to disqualify himself from any decisions by the investment board that could benefit his business, which manages $400 million for about 300 private investors. The board controls $63 billion in public-employee pension funds.

"He is very much a gentleman and conducts himself properly," said State Treasurer Mike Murphy, who serves on the 15-member board with Nierenberg, and has not received any campaign contributions from him.

Nierenberg doesn't see his contributions to the state party as effectively skirting limits on campaign contributions. "It's not anything I've hurt my head about," he said.

He also didn't have any qualms about supporting Romney. He not only stood at Romney's side earlier this year when the candidate gave a major speech in Texas about his Mormon faith, he wore a Jewish prayer shawl and yarmulke in a show of support.

"I was acting as a free agent as I usually do. I was making a point of solidarity from one misunderstood religious minority to another," Nierenberg said.

Boss, mentor early on

That's not why he backed Romney, though. "He was my boss and mentor for the first six years of my career," said Nierenberg, 55, who went to work for Romney at a Boston-based management-consulting firm right out of Yale Law School in 1978.

Nierenberg calls Romney the "most capable person" he ever met. And thanks to Nierenberg, Romney collected more campaign money from Southwest Washington than any other GOP candidate.

But Nierenberg did agonize, he said, about who to support for president after Romney dropped out.

While Nierenberg said he likes Barack Obama's domestic agenda, he was swayed by McCain's foreign policy. "I feel we live in a pretty dangerous world and I like his experience in the whole area of national security."

He sent McCain a $2,300 check — the legal maximum in federal elections — in May.

"There are relatively few people I've encountered in public life with whom I have 100 percent agreement," Nierenberg added, "and this presidential race is no different."

Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or byoung@seattletimes.com