CAMPAIGN ’88 : House to Recite Pledge of Allegiance Daily

The House opened its session Tuesday with the Pledge of Allegiance, breaking with normal practice because of election-year squabbling over whether Democrats or Republicans are more patriotic, and House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) said he intends to continue daily recitation of the pledge throughout the rest of this year’s session of Congress.

The recitation was led by Rep. G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery (D-Miss.) and was to be led today by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), with Democrats and Republicans alternating through the end of the session in October.

The pledge has become an issue in this year’s political campaign, with GOP nominee George Bush criticizing Democrat Michael S. Dukakis for vetoing a bill in 1977 that would have penalized teachers for not leading the pledge in Massachusetts schools. Dukakis, the governor, said he vetoed the bill because it was unconstitutional, and has labeled Bush’s attack a McCarthy-like tactic.

Wright said the issue of whether to permanently rewrite House rules to call for saying the pledge daily would be referred to the Democratic caucus’ rules committee for consideration, and possibly brought before the full House next year.

But he repeated his belief that attempting to use the pledge as a political weapon “is McCarthyism,” a reference to the fervently anti-Communist Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.), who impugned many Americans’ patriotism in the 1950s.