Wieder Defends Using Campaign Funds on Trip

Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder spent more than $8,600 in campaign funds on a recent two-week trip to the Soviet Union, an expense, she said Monday, that is justified as part of her professional duties as a supervisor.

According to a financial-disclosure report filed last week with the county registrar of voters, Wieder spent a total of $8,684 for the Soviet trip, which was sponsored by the International Women’s Forum.

Wieder listed the trip expenses alone at $6,496, plus traveler’s checks totaling $920 and a side trip costing $1,268. Wieder described the expenses only as “Russian Trip,” without further breakdown on the financial disclosure statement that covers six months. In an interview Monday, Wieder said that an itemized list of her expenses for the trip was not available.

Political activist Shirley Grindle, author of the county’s campaign-finance ordinance, questioned Wieder’s use of campaign funds for a trip sponsored by a group not affiliated with the county.

“I believe this is stretching the use of campaign funds for county-related escapades too far,” said Grindle, a former county planning commissioner who a decade ago helped win passage of the campaign finance reform ordinance known as TINCUP (Time Is Now, Clean Up Politics).

“It’s wrong for this trip to be coming out of her campaign funds. If she wanted to go to Russia, she should have taken it out of her own pocket, not out of campaign funds,” Grindle said.

Wieder said that she left the United States on April 26 and stayed in Moscow for four days. She then went to Kiev for three days, then spent two days in Odessa and another three days in Leningrad. The rest of the trip was spent in Europe meeting with other officials, Wieder said.

The supervisor said she traveled with 35 other women who are also members of the forum group, composed of high-profile women in business, government, the arts and academia. Wieder is a member of the trusteeship of the International Forum, the organization’s Los Angeles chapter. She said she was invited to become a trustee about five years ago.

“I did not go representing Orange County, I went representing the International Women’s Forum,” Wieder said. Yet she said the trip qualified as a legitimate campaign expense because it was part of her professional duty as a supervisor.

“I would not have been invited to be a trustee if I had not been a supervisor,” she explained.

The supervisor said her husband, Irv, accompanied her to the Soviet Union but paid his own expenses.

A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office said that Wieder’s trip will pass muster as long as she can justify it as being part of a political, legislative or governmental purpose.

“The term is broad, it could involve any number of circumstances,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Eugene Hill said. “But if it’s a vacation, there’s a problem.”

Wieder insisted that the trip was not a vacation.

“The trip was entirely business. I was not on vacation, I didn’t do things on my own; I didn’t plan my own itinerary,” she said.

Wieder said that during the trip, she met with the Soviet Women’s Committee, which she described as the Soviet equivalent to the Forum. She said she also met with the highest-ranking women in the Soviet Politburo.

“We talked about women’s issues as they related to the Soviet Union and our part of the world,” Wieder said.

But that did not appease Grindle.

“If Supervisor Wieder had made a trip to Russian as a member of the Orange County Transportation Commission or a member of another county commission, and was representing the county on this behalf, I would not see this as being the wrong use for campaign funds. This (trip) is otherwise,” Grindle said.

It is the second time Wieder has been criticized over the expenses for a trip abroad. But in the previous case, Wieder accepted a 19-day trip to South Africa as the guest of the Pretoria government. That trip four years ago was paid entirely by the South African government. At the time, she was criticized heavily by her political foes.

Wieder represents the 2nd Supervisorial District, which includes the cities of Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Stanton and Cypress, the unincorporated areas of Rossmoor and Sunset Beach, and parts of Garden Grove and Westminster.