SBA Quits Campbell’s Women’s Meetings

In a decision extending to conferences sponsored by elected officeholders nationwide, the U.S. Small Business Administration has withdrawn its co-sponsorship of state Sen. William Campbell’s highly successful annual women’s conference in Anaheim.

In a letter to Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) in late October, SBA administrator James Abdnor made it clear that the impetus for the decision was fallout from the Campbell conference and from one held in September by state Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno).

The conference has been criticized since its inception in 1983 by opponents who see it as a political tool for Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights). In recent years, it has come under fire because of the large sums of money it produces for Campbell’s wife and political associates.

Maddy Held Conference

Maddy, copying Campbell’s model, held his first Conference on Women this year and upset Bumpers by using Marilyn Quayle, wife of Republican vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle, as a keynote speaker.

Polly Ragon, a staff member of the U.S. Senate’s Small Business Committee that Bumpers chairs, said the committee already was leery of the Campbell conference when it learned of Maddy’s conference. “This was really beyond the pale,” Ragon said, referring to Mrs. Quayle’s partisan appearance. “It’s not supposed to be political. If the SBA is going to sponsor or contribute any money, it’s supposed to be nonpolitical.”

Neither Campbell nor Maddy was available for comment Friday. Campbell said in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times that he considered the conference “one of the best things I do for my constituents. It has helped literally thousands of women.”

Vivian Hall, an Orange County women’s group activist and former teacher, has opposed the Campbell conferences since they began. She first opposed it, she said, because of what she considered Campbell’s “hypocrisy” in sponsoring a women’s conference. His voting record was not supportive of many women’s issues, Hall said.

Upset by Payment

She was also upset by the conference’s payment of $165,000 in fees to a company formed in 1987 by Campbell’s wife and Karen Smith, one of the senator’s aides. They have, in effect, organized Campbell’s last two conferences. They also organized Maddy’s conference.

Campbell said in the recent interview that he did not think his wife and Smith should be “penalized” for their skills in organizing the conference. He said the local attacks on the conference were politically motivated.

An SBA spokeswoman said the moratorium on such co-sponsorships is part of an overall review of programs by Abdnor, a former Republican U.S. senator from South Dakota who took over the SBA reins in March, 1987.

But SBA spokeswoman Christina Kielich confirmed that Abdnor cited the Maddy and Campbell conferences in his letter to Bumpers. Abdnor’s letter, Kielich said, described the SBA’s withdrawal of support for such conferences nationwide, noting: “This last prohibition is in direct response to the problems that arose from the co-sponsorships with state Senators Campbell and Maddy.”

Ragon said the long-term effect of Abdnor’s decision is difficult to assess because of the upcoming presidential election. SBA spokeswoman Kielich said Abdnor expects to issue “comprehensive new policies, procedures and delegations of authority in the very near future” regarding such programs.

Smith Leaving Staff

Campbell said in his interview with The Times that he might not ask for SBA involvement in future conferences and added that Karen Smith is leaving his staff at year’s end to pursue her new career as a full-time conference organizer.

Campbell apparently hurt his own case by refusing to respond to the U.S. Senate committee’s request for funding information, Ragon said. That request was made last spring when the committee first looked into the conference, but the committee never heard from Campbell, she said.

“If $1 from the SBA goes into sponsorship,” Ragon said, the conference backers are responsible for providing a full financial disclosure.

SBA officials have said their agency has contributed about $240,000 to Campbell’s conferences since 1984, mostly for mailings and printing of brochures.

What the committee looked at, she said, were some conference brochures. While many of the offerings at the conference are of a serious nature, others are considered more frivolous. Those caught the committee members’ eyes, Ragon said.

“It was so egregiously patronizing that it really made all of the senators on the committee angry--all of them, Republican and Democratic,” Ragon said. “They opened the brochures and spread them on the table and were reading these titles out loud. They also had Campbell’s campaign pictures all over. It was simply self-aggrandizement. He should have used some restraint.”