When it comes to top-dollar Minnesota political contributions, the so-called Legacy Amendment was the big winner in 2008.

And a Capitol Report/PIM analysis of political contribution data in 2008 from the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board (CFB) shows that the successful ballot initiative to help pay for environmental and arts programs could actually be called the Dayton/Rockefeller Amendment.

In general, our analysis revealed a fundamental difference between how the state GOP and the state DFL parties get money from Minnesotans: The GOP gets most from individuals, while the DFL gets most of its dough from interest groups.

According to the CFB data, most of the largest donations ($25,000 and over) made by Minnesota citizens in 2008 went to Vote Yes Minnesota (VYM), a group formed to promote passage of the “Legacy Amendment,” which raised the state sales by a fraction of 1 percent to provide dedicated funding for the environment and the arts for 25 years. In all, VYM received a total of $1.82 million in these mega-buck contributions for the year.

That sum amounted to 46 percent of the $3.97 million in total receipts amassed by the group.

In all, VYM collected 15 of the 27 donations of $25,000 or more made by Minnesotans to state political organizations last year. They also garnered the single largest political gift given by a private Minnesota citizen for 2008: $1 million from local philanthropist and Rockefeller heir Alida Messinger.

With only one exception, the other 12 contributions on the list went to units of the state’s Republican and DFL parties. By far the largest of these was Primera Technology CEO Robert Cummins’ $275,000 gift to the House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC). According to CFB data, this single contribution constituted 24 percent of the $1.15 million taken in by HRCC in 2008.

A hard-right social conservative, Cummins has donated more than $1.6 million to Republican Party units, campaigns and causes since 1998, the first year recorded in Minnesota’s campaign finance database. That includes $525,000 in donations to House Republicans since 2006 – about 15 percent of the $3.44 million collected by HRCC in those years – and $535,000 to the Republican Party of Minnesota since 1998.

The list results underscore several points regarding the dynamics of big-time political giving in 2008.

The outsized role of major contributions. The 27 donations on this list represent just two-tenths of 1 percent of the nearly 14,000 political contributions of more than $100 given by private individuals in 2008. But as a matter of dollars, their $2.49 million sum is equal to 30.2 percent of the $8.24 million given by Minnesota citizens during the year.

The Dayton/ Rockefeller Amendment? Most of the money that Vote Yes Minnesota got from Minnesotans who gave $25,000 or more in support of the Legacy Amendment came from the Dayton and/or Rockefeller families. In fact, seven of the 15 VYM high-end donations – and $1.5 million of the $1.8 million the group got in donations of $25,000 or more – came either from a Dayton or from the $1 million gift from Alida Messinger, who at one time was married to former Minnesota Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton.

Other local eminences who gave big to the environment/arts-funding amendment: real estate/development titan Ralph Burnet and his wife, Peggy, and Twins Sports CEO Jim Pohlad.

Different funding strokes for DFL, Republicans. In the House-only election cycle of 2008, $25k-and-over contributions from individual donors constituted 28 percent of House Republican Campaign Committee receipts and 16 percent of the Republican Party of Minnesota’s total intake (35 percent if intra-party transfers are excluded).

Besides Cummins, these GOP party units’ largest single-gift benefactors were former Target CEO Robert Ulrich, who gave $70,000 to the state party and $25,000 to House Republicans, and Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, who gave $30,000 to the state party and $25,000 to HRCC.

By contrast, $25k-and-over gifts from individuals made up only 5 percent of DFL House Caucus receipts and one-tenth of 1 percent of the DFL State Central Committee’s bottom line (one-half of 1 percent if intra-party transfers are excluded).

The principal donors to DFL Party units are political action committees. In 2008, for example, nine of the 10 biggest contributions to the DFL House Caucus came from PACs (the other being a transfer from the state party): five from labor groups, three from the state’s Indian tribal PACs, and one from the state’s largest teachers’ union.

The largest individual donation to the caucus, $56,500 from local investor and publisher Vance Opperman, came in at No. 6 on our Capitol Report/PIM list, but it was just the 11th-largest contribution to House DFLers.

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