But Silverstein finds plenty to ponder when it comes to SIWP’s finances. The group has little to show for $88,000 it has spent out of the $110,000 it has raised — some $40,000 of which went to unspecified “contract labor” from 2002 to 2004.

Goodman and Kazeminy were last linked doing good deeds after an apartment building Goodman owns burned last December. Each was reported to have put $50,000 into a fund for victims of the fire, only to have those gifts overshadowed by an anonymous $1 million donation.

But Kazeminy and Goodman won’t return Silverstein’s calls about SIWP, so his questions about where the group’s money went may stay unanswered unless the Internal Revenue Service investigates, finds fault and makes an enforcement action public. Silverstein concludes:

… the foundation has raised and spent about $100,000 but has done, as far as I can tell, virtually nothing to honor the victims of 9/11 or to “remind the world…that it cannot be allowed to happen again.”

So what exactly is the purpose of this IRS-approved non-profit organization?

That amount was matched by Kazeminy friend and business associate John Goodman, who owns the Burncliff Apartments through his firm, the Goodman Group — and who has a habit of donating money in lockstep with Kazeminy to Coleman and other Republicans.

UPDATED after the jump. 

Both generous gifts were soon dwarfed by an anonymous $1 million donation that’s being doled out to the Burncliff’s 200 residents in $17,500 checks per apartment unit. Whether Goodman and Kazeminy might also be behind the anonymous gift isn’t known — but if the Texas lawsuit and allegations about his paying for Coleman’s (business) suits are to be believed, Kazeminy has his own habit of quiet giving.

UPDATE: Kazeminy’s spokesperson tells the Political Animal he isn’t the million dollar donor — though she had to check with him to be sure “because it’s the kind of thing he would have done.”

Vance Opperman has been a major player in Democratic politics in Minnesota for four decades. In 1968, after helping lead opposition to the Vietnam War in Minneapolis, he was elected chair of the Hennepin County DFL. The recent law school graduate was just 25 years old.

Opperman went on to found a highly successful law firm, McGovern, Opperman & Paquin, amassing millions in the process. In 1991 the National Law Journal named him one of the 100 most influential attorneys in the country. But the majority of Opperman’s fortune came from the 1996 sale of West Publishing, the legal publishing behemoth, to the Canadian firm Thompson Corp. for $3.4 billion.

His success translated into huge amounts of cash for Democratic candidates and causes. In 1995 and 1996, Opperman and his wife Darin gave the Democrats at least $350,000 to bolster the re-election prospects of President Clinton. A 1998 City Pages cover story referred to Opperman as “the most powerful man you’ve never heard of.”

“When I was growing up, service in public office was a high honor,” Opperman told reporter Britt Robson at the time. “And people said, ‘I am giving up something of my life to give to the community. I have chosen this as a public service.’ And they meant it when they said that, and I think other people believed it.

“Now, you have to be crazy to run for office, and if you do, most of your neighbors immediately assume you are a crook. And that should make all of us a little bit sad.”

Opperman’s apparent disgust with the cynicism of modern politics, however, has not dissuaded him from continuing to play an outsized role in DFL campaigns in the ensuing years. According to a 2003 report by the Institute on Money in State Politics, he contributed $243,640 to Democratic Party committees between 1998 and 2002 — making him the second largest political donor in the state during that time period. So far this election cycle, Opperman and his wife Darin have contributed $46,000 to federal Democratic candidates and causes, placing the couple in 27th place on the list of Minnesota’s most generous political patrons.

The top 100 givers in the state have made $4.1 million in federal political contributions since the beginning of 2007, or more than $40,000 per household. Republican donors have cut checks for $2.3 million, while their Democratic counterparts have handed out $1.8 million. To get a better understanding of the state’s most generous political patrons, the Minnesota Independent commissioned a study by the Center for Responsive Politics looking at the top 100 contributors.

In the first four installments of this series we looked at the bottom seventy members of the list, those contributing between $23,000 and $44,000. Today we examine places 21 through 30. Donors on this section of the list contributed a total of $477,523 to federal political candidates and causes during the first 18 months of this election cycle. Republican contributors dominated this section of the list, with the GOP getting roughly 70 percent of their donations.

Robert Cummins is in many ways Opperman’s GOP counterpart. He has long been one of the most conspicuous GOP rainmakers in the state. The notoriously media-shy CEO of Plymouth-based Primera Technology has helped pad the coffers of groups across the conservative landscape. He’s given more than $300,000 directly to the state Republican party in the last decade and is a key donor to influential advocacy groups like the Taxpayer’s League of Minnesota and the Freedom Club PAC, which he helped found a decade ago.

Cummins has also been the leading financial backer of efforts to ban gay marriage in Minnesota. In recent years he has contributed more than $400,000 to Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage and Minnesotans for Marriage. Both organizations have advocated for a Constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex unions.

In the first 18 months of this election cycle, Robert Cummins and his wife Joan have contributed $53,600 to federal GOP candidates and causes, placing them 21st on the list of Minnesota’s top political patrons. They’ve both written checks to all credible Republican Congressional contenders, including maximum $4,600 contributions from each of them to Sen. Norm Coleman. The couple have also chipped in $20,000 to the state GOP’s coffers this election cycle.

Another name on the GOP side of the ledger that’s no surprise is Glen Taylor. The Minnesota Timberwolves owner grew up on a farm in Comfrey, Minnesota. In 1975 he purchased a Mankato printing business that he’d worked at since graduating from college and transformed it into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise known as Taylor Corporation. Earlier this month Forbes estimated his current wealth at $3.3 billion. The Mankato businessman served as a Republican state senator from 1980 to 1986, rising to the post of Minority Leader.

Taylor and his wife Becky have contributed at least $48,900 to federal GOP candidates and causes so far this election cycle. That total includes $17,200 for the state GOP.

Taylor is not the only prominent Minnesota businessman writing big checks to Republican candidates. John Goodman, CEO of the Goodman Group, a Chaska-based development firm that specializes in building nursing homes and retirement communities, clocks in at 25th on the list. The Goodman household has doled out $48,150 so far this election cycle, almost exclusively to Republicans. The one exception? A $2,300 contribution to state senator Terri Bonoff, who unsuccessfully sought the DFL endorsement earlier this year in the Third Congressional District.

In 2002 Mark Davis expressed his disgust at electoral politics in an interview with Connect Business Magazine. “I am losing faith in our political system and political parties,” he said. “Now that our society has dug itself into thinking government can solve its problems, it will be hard for us to dig our way out.” But this lack of faith in government hasn’t stopped the president of Le Sueur-based dairy products company Davisco Foods International from giving generously to Republican politicians. Davis and his wife Mary have doled out at least $46,200 to GOP candidates since the beginning of 2007.

Despite the preponderance of Republican donors on this section of the list, one other Democratic name pops out: Mike Ciresi. The attorney gained notoriety for helping negotiate the state’s $6 billion settlement with tobacco companies in 1998. He has twice run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, most recently seeking this year’s DFL endorsement to take on Coleman. Ciresi and his wife Ann have given $45,273 to DFL candidates so far this election cycle, including donations to every Minnesota Congressional contender except for Collin Peterson.

Here’s the complete list of donors occupying slots 21 through 30:

21. Robert and Joan Cummins, Deephaven, Primera Technology, $53,600

22. Tim Owens, Wayzata, Voyageur Financial Services, $50,550

23. Daniel J. Starks, St. Paul, no employer listed, $49,100

24. Glen and Becky Taylor, Mankato, Taylor Corp., $48,900

25. John and Sidney Goodman, Minnetonka, Goodman Group, $48,150

26. Mark and Mary Davis, Saint Peter, Davisco Foods International, $46,200

27. Vance and Darin Opperman, Minneapolis, Key Investment, $46,000

28. Bruce Dayton, Wayzata, retired, $45,400

29. Mike and Ann Ciresi, Mendota Heights, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, $45,273

30. John and Mary Wren, Stillwater, Lakeville Motor Express, $44,350

Previously in The Crunch:

Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 31 to 40

Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 41 to 50
Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 51 to 75
Minnesota’s Top 100 political givers: 76 to 100