BY almost any measure, California Gov. Gray Davis is one of the most avid and successful fundraisers in American political history.

His $1-million-a-month consistency has made him a prototype for these political times – a state politician cut in the mold of Presidents Clinton and Bush, who understands the centrality of campaign cash in a world of ever-more-costly elections.

Yet recently, his story has also become a cautionary tale to office seekers nationwide, as his all-out fundraising efforts draw growing ethical scrutiny and public ire. One in a string of examples: The state prison guards' union donated $251,000 to Mr. Davis in March, weeks after he gave them a 34 percent pay raise and chose to shut down five private prisons, which had been hailed as successes but which the union opposed.

While he is hardly the first politician to be accused of currying favor for a fat check, the scope of his fundraising – setting a new standard for state elections – has made his example more poignant. He is in many ways a campaign-finance experiment in action, testing the limits of what voters will overlook and what will fire their outrage.

"Without meaning to, Davis may be discovering that there are boundaries to this," says Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College outside Los Angeles. "He's the Christopher Columbus of campaign finance."

Of late, a series of contributions have begun to define where that line is.

• A member of the Davis administration accepted a $25,000 check from a lobbyist for software company Oracle several days after the state signed a $95 million contract with the company. Davis returned the check earlier this month, and the highly criticized deal is now considered so flawed that the state is trying to void it.

• A March visit to the University of California, Berkeley, to chat with Democratic students was accompanied by a pitch: Each student who wanted to attend was requested to pay $100.

• A plumbers' union this month gave $260,000 shortly after the Davis administration delayed a decision on whether to allow homes to have plastic piping, which is cheaper and easier to install than current copper piping. Only one other state has a similar ban on plastic pipes.

• In the middle of a policy discussion with the California Teachers Association in his office at the state Capitol in February, Davis abruptly asked for $1 million, according to the union president.

• Soon after hiring a former Davis official in 2000, the consulting company Accenture gave the governor $50,000. Later, Accenture won a $453 million contract to provide software to the state.

Few go so far as to suggest that Davis has done anything illegal, and the administration has repeatedly denied that donations have any effect on public policy.

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