U.S. Aid for Sen. Campbell’s Women’s Meeting Criticized

Criticism that state Sen. William Campbell’s annual Conference on Women is devoted more to political self-promotion than promotion of women’s issues has prompted a review of federal assistance for the event.

Officials with the Small Business Administration, which has co-sponsored and partially subsidized the conference since 1982, said Monday that the agency may not renew its assistance next year.

Coe Wilkins, the regional public information officer for the SBA in Los Angeles, said new rules that restrict assistance the agency can extend will mean events such as the women’s conference will “come under a more rigid and hard review” next year.

But Wilkins called the conference a “legitimate” event and said the SBA would likely continue its participation.

“We’re there because we should be there; it’s a legitimate thing,” Wilkins said. “We’re getting to the people we need to be getting to. It’s probably the biggest and one of the more successful women’s conferences in the country, and we don’t look at it as a political event.”

The SBA has been criticized for using federal funds to print and mail brochures touting the conference. SBA officials estimate that nearly $60,000 for such services was spent for this year’s conference, currently under way at the Anaheim Hilton.

The brochures tout “Sen. Campbell’s Conference on Women” and prominently feature a picture of Campbell.

The prominence of Campbell on the brochures prompted U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), chairman of the Senate’s Small Business Committee, at a March 23 committee meeting in Washington to call them “flagrantly political, containing little or no information about SBA programs.”

Bumpers requested that the SBA develop a policy to prevent “future expenditures for the promotion of political events.”

The brochures were sent to the committee by representatives of several Orange County women’s groups, who complained that the women’s conference focuses largely on frivolous issues and who have attacked Campbell’s voting record on women’s issues.

Campbell could not be reached for comment Monday.

A coalition of Orange County feminists, who contend that Campbell has never been a champion of women’s rights, planned to protest the conference early this morning when participants arrive at the Anaheim Hilton for the day’s activities.

The Conference on Women began Monday and continues through Wednesday. The keynote speaker at a luncheon today is U.S. Secretary of Labor Ann McLaughlin; other speakers include novelist Jackie Collins and psychologist Irene Kassorla.