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Hit Parade--5/29
Updated at all hours

Fundraising Secrets of the Stars, or of Mark Canton, Anyway: Michael Cieply's LAT article on Hollywood right-wingers contains the following passage:

...the bad old days -- when, for instance, studio chief Mark Canton could tie a contract renewal at Columbia Pictures to a demand for Clinton donations in the amount of $1,000 from a producer and $500 from his chief executive (myself, as it happens) -- were really over.

Isn't tying a contract extension to a political donation possibly, maybe, like ... well, illegal? It sure seems either coercive, or else an illegal use of Columbia's corporate power. (Corporations can't make such contributions directly.) ... How widespread was this seemingly coercive practice? ... No wonder Clinton raised so much money from Hollywood. ... Normally with this sort of story one would worry whether Cieply was only reporting a rumor. But here he claims to have himself been the target of the contribution-strongarm. ... Nor, if I read Cieply's story correctly, was this a seemingly-coerced contribution to a corporate PAC. It seems to have been a coerced direct "individual" contribution to Clinton's campaign! ... (5/29)

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001