How Royalties Found Way to Wright Pocket

On March 11, 1986, then-House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) made a speech to the Fertilizer Institute but received no fee for his appearance. Instead, at the suggestion of a Wright aide, the group paid $2,023 for 340 copies of his book, “Reflections of a Public Man.”

More than half the money from the Fertilizer Institute’s purchase went directly into Wright’s pocket in the form of book royalties--a sum that he would have been prohibited from accepting under House rules governing speaking fees.

Like the Fertilizer Institute, many other special interest groups told similar stories to the House Ethics Committee about their dealings with Wright. In fact, the pattern was repeated so often that the panel decided to charge Wright in its report released Monday with selling the books as part of a scheme to circumvent the House-imposed limit on speaking fees.

The committee found that 97% of Wright’s books were sold in bulk to special interest groups or to friends who admitted that they were trying to help Wright financially. And in a few cases, the groups or individuals that paid for the books never even got the volumes in return.

Moreover, the committee heard testimony from several former associates of Wright indicating that the book was being marketed as an alternative to speaking fees with the full knowledge of the Speaker. Wright himself has admitted that he approved one such deal.

Wright’s book, a 117-page compendium of excerpts of his speeches and other writings, has yielded the Speaker a profit of $54,642 in royalties since it was published by his old friend, William Carlos Moore, in 1985. The generous royalties were paid under an unusual agreement in which Moore, a Ft. Worth printer, promised him the equivalent of 55% of the book’s gross sales.

It is highly unusual for publishers to provide royalties of more than 15%, and few--if any--authors in Congress have ever reaped a bonanza like Wright’s from their writings. In fact, an industry expert told the committee that “mainline publishers” would have rejected the Wright book as unsalable.

The committee was clearly suspicious of the publishing arrangement not only because it made so much outside income for Wright but also because it was produced by Moore, a former lobbyist for the Teamsters who served a jail term in the 1970s for misappropriating union money by delivering cash payoffs to politicians on behalf of then-Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa. Moore insisted at the time that Wright never received a Teamsters’ payoff.

Moore, who as a printer, pollster and consultant has done more than $500,000 in work for Wright’s campaign committee over the last decade, never sought to market the Speaker’s book in the normal way through book stores, according to his testimony. Instead, he tried without success to peddle it to Texas Democrats through direct mail and telephone solicitation.

Although Moore’s contract with Wright stipulated that he would sell the book himself, he told the committee that he could not remember how it was marketed in most instances. The only sales he remembered were those to the Teamsters, whose political action committee purchased $12,200 worth of the books.

Among the other groups identified in the report that purchased the books in bulk at a cost of $5.95 a copy in lieu of a speaking fee to Wright were Southest Texas State University, the law firm of Hamel & Park, Ocean Spray Massachusetts Growers, Mid-Continental Oil & Gas Assn., National Assn. of Realtors, New England Life Insurance Co., Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Assn., National Assn. of Arab Americans and Van Liew Capital.

In addition, the White Consulting Group, a lobbying firm headed by John C. White, a friend of Wright and former chairman of the Democratic Party, also purchased 1,031 of the books in 1985 for $7,495, and White authorized Moore to distribute them to Texas Democrats.

Although White later received “thank you” notes from some recipients of the book, Moore has no recollection of mailing them, the report said. Moore said that he gave the books to White.

Another of Wright’s Texas cronies, S. Gene Payte, said that he sent $5,000 to Moore’s business in March, 1989, for “revision and distribution” of the book. He said he did so after Wright returned a check for an unidentified amount that he had given directly to Wright’s wife, Betty, as a token of his esteem. He later sent Moore another $1,000.

Wright received $3,300 of the money from Payte, but the contributor said he got only between 300 and 500 of the unrevised books in return for his $6,000, and Moore admitted that he never updated the publication with the money from Payte.

FOCUS OF THE HOUSE ETHICS COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION

James Claude Wright Jr. (D-Tex.), 66, a career politician with a well-earned reputation for his oratory, has been Speaker of the House since the start of the 100th Congress in January, 1987. He served in the Texas legislature between 1947 and 1949, as mayor of Weatherford, Tex., between 1959 and 1954 before being elected to the House in 1955. He ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 1961 and served on the House Public Works Committee before becoming majority leader in 1977. As Speaker, his chief accomplishment has been

the development of a bipartisan U.S. strategy in Central America.

Betty Hay Wright, 65, is the second wife of the Speaker. She was an employee of the House Public Works Committee when she married Wright in 1972 shortly after his divorce from his first wife, Mab. The second Mrs. Wright also had been previously married. She resigned from the committee job in 1977 after questions about a possible conflict of interest were raised when her husband became majority leader. Between 1981 and 1884, she collected an annual salary of $18,000 a year from Mallightco--a partnership set up by the Wrights with their friend George A. Mallick Jr. and his wife. As a young woman, she worked as a dancer in nightclub chorus lines in St. Louis.

George A. Mallick Jr., 54, a wealthy real estate developer in Ft. Worth, Tex., has been a friend of Wright since 1963 when the congressman dedicated one of Mallick’s shopping centers. He is the son of a prosperous wholesaler and the grandson of a Lebanese immigrant who made a fortune by working as a simple peddler after arriving in Ft. Worth shortly before the turn of the century. Mallick and his wife, Marlene, were partners with the Wrights in an investment partnership known as Mallightco--a blend of the two family names. By his own admission, Mallick has made and lost at least two fortunes in Texas real estate over the past four decades.

William Carlos Moore, 63, is a printer in Ft. Worth, Tex., who arranged for the production and distribution of Wright’s book, “Reflections of A Public Man.” In the past decade, he has received more than $500,000 from Wright’s campaign organization for such printed items as bumper stickers as well as political consulting and polling. In the 1970s, Moore, then a lobbyist for the Teamsters, served less than six months of a two-year jail sentence for income tax evasion in connection with charges that he misappropriated union funds. He claimed he used the money for payoffs to politicians, but declined to name them.