Campbell Reports $19,400 in Gifts, Speech Fees, Jet Tickets

Former Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights), who quit the 31st Senate District seat last month, accepted nearly $19,400 in gifts, free air travel and speaking fees during 1989, according to his final financial disclosure statement.

The statement, filed Jan. 12, showed that Campbell made $13,500 for speeches he gave to 16 groups, two of which hired him after he announced his resignation on Oct. 26. Campbell did not step down until Dec. 15 to assume his duties as president of the California Manufacturers Assn.

The biggest gift Campbell received was a $2,681 private jet ride he took from Sacramento to Southern California on the day he announced his resignation at a Capitol press conference. The jet was paid for by United Packaging Inc., a City of Industry firm for which Campbell’s staff intervened with state purchasing agents in 1988 to help it secure a lucrative state contract to supply plastic garbage bags.

A former spokeswoman for Campbell said the retired legislator took the trip to attend a funeral for a friend who was killed in the October earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. She said no commercial flights were available that ensured the legislator would arrive in time for the rites after his press conference.

United Packaging Inc. also paid $333 for air fare last Jan. 21. Campbell attended the Super Bowl in Miami on that weekend.

Campbell also reported that several companies--U.S. Tobacco, Pfizer Pharmaceutical, the Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. bond house--paid for entertainment and expensive dinners for the legislator when he led lawmakers on a junket to New York City in early December. As part of the official activities on the trip, Campbell scheduled the lawmakers for a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.