Setting Rules on Wives’ Jobs Hits Home for Many in Congress

To hear House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) talk about it, the most important issue involved in the Ethics Committee’s case against him is the right of his wife, Betty, to have her own career.

It was Wright’s defense of his wife that caused him to choke up on national television last week, and it is Mrs. Wright’s employment history that the Speaker has chosen to defend--to the virtual exclusion of all other matters--since he was charged with 69 violations of House rules on Monday.

Skeptics view Wright’s single-minded attention to this issue as part of a strategy on the part of the Speaker to obscure his own culpability.

Called ‘Red Herring’

“It’s a red herring,” said House GOP campaign spokesman John Buckley, referring to Wright’s defense of his wife. “He is doing a pretty good job of diverting attention away from how he conspired to evade the limit on outside income by selling his book.”

But Wright’s defenders assert that the issue of Mrs. Wright’s employment is a legitimate concern to all House members and that, by raising it, the Speaker has succeeded in reminding House members--particularly those with working spouses--that they all have a personal stake in how the rules are being interpreted by the Ethics Committee in this case.

Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), the assistant majority leader, said that many House members “do not want to see the Ethics Committee start determining whether a spouse is gainfully employed.” He added: “People are asking, ‘What is this saying about the rules? Where are we headed here?’ ”

Although it is far too early to determine whether Wright’s strategy will succeed in exonerating him, there is no doubt that it has set some House members to wondering if the Wright investigation will lead to questions about the propriety of their own spouses’ employment.

From the start of the Ethics Committee investigation 10 months ago, Wright has clearly been sensitive about any evidence implicating his wife. Much of his concern appears based on a natural desire to protect Mrs. Wright, an attractive, dark-haired woman whom he married 17 years ago after his first marriage had ended in divorce.

But, to those House members who know the Wrights well, it is no surprise that Betty Wright is playing a central role in this controversy--just as she does in the Speaker’s life. Indeed, friends say that she has an enormous influence over her husband. Her investment judgment often has been credited by the Speaker with increasing family wealth.

Mrs. Wright, 64, was employed by the House Public Works Committee when she married her husband, and she resigned from that job in 1977 after he became majority leader. Beginning in 1979, she worked for Mallick Properties, owned by Wright’s old friend, George A. Mallick Jr., before the two families established a joint investment firm known as Mallightco.

Salary Called a Gift

Although the Ethics Committee did not question the legitimacy of her employment by Mallick Properties, it agreed with special counsel Richard J. Phelan’s judgment that she did not perform services sufficient to justify her $18,000-a-year salary from Mallightco. As a result, the committee concluded that her salary--as well as the use of a condominium and Cadillac provided by the Mallick family--constituted an unlawful gift to the Wrights.

In her defense, Wright has solicited affidavits from at least two people in Texas who say they dealt with Mrs. Wright when she was investigating investment opportunities for Mallightco. He contends that she worked five to seven days a month for the firm.

Even though the committee did not make an issue of Mrs. Wright’s lack of formal training as an investment adviser, the Speaker was quick to defend her on that basis. “I don’t think one needs an MBA to evaluate real estate,” he said.

In the Speaker’s view, the committee’s judgment raises a feminist issue.

Right to Own Lives Cited

“Those who are married to people in public office, in the Congress, are entitled to lives of their own,” he said. “Perhaps half of the wives of members of Congress--spouses of members of Congress--are engaged in or employed in a professional or a business relationship on their own. In this day and time, they have that right, and that right must be absolute and it must be protected.”

But Ethics Committee members argue that the issue of whether Wright received an illegal gift from Mallick has nothing to do with feminism. As Committee Chairman Julian Dixon (D-Los Angeles) put it: “The issue is not whether a spouse can work, but whether she did work and earned the money.”

According to the committee, the panel found no evidence that Mrs. Wright provided any “identifiable services or work products” for her $18,000 a year.

In its report, the committee noted that Mallightco “never actually invested in any of the investment opportunities Betty Wright researched” and added that “either she was not adept at selecting good investment opportunities for examination or Mallick never intended to invest in any of these investment opportunities.”

Committee counsel Phelan suggested that Mallick, a real estate developer in Ft. Worth, simply used Mrs. Wright to make business contacts in other parts of Texas.

Some women Democrats in the House are particularly disturbed by the committee’s criticism of Mrs. Wright’s employment. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said it reflected the tendency of society to undervalue the work that women do.

To most House members, however, the issue of what constitutes legitimate employment by a spouse is more than a philosophical matter. Many members with working spouses wondered whether their family incomes could pass muster with the committee.

“What people want to know is: ‘What is the rule?’ ” said Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), whose husband is a lawyer in Washington. “I thought we knew the rule . . . but now I’m not sure we know what the rule is.”

House rules simply require that members disclose the source of a spouse’s income. Never before has the Ethics Committee interpreted it to require proof that the income was earned.

A key House Democratic strategist, who asked not to be identified, said many members of his party are worried that, if the committee’s interpretation of the rule is not challenged, their Republican opponents will seize on their spouse’s employment as a campaign issue in the 1990 election. He said the charges against Mrs. Wright are particularly disturbing to those members whose spouses hold jobs as congressional lobbyists.

“It suggests a whole new kind of negative politics,” he said.

Already, some House members report that they have been receiving calls from hometown newspapers inquiring about the nature of their spouses’ jobs.

But Buckley, spokesman for the House Republican Campaign Committee, an organization that hopes to capitalize on the Wright scandal to elect GOP candidates in the 1990 election, said that Democrats will reject Wright’s message that “the brush is broad enough to smear you, too.” He predicted that members will dissociate themselves from the scandal by voting to reprimand Wright.

Likewise, Buckley said he doubts that the controversy involving Mrs. Wright will succeed in diverting attention from the other, unrelated charge that Wright devised a scheme to evade the House limit on outside speaking fees--or honorariums--by arranging for bulk sales of his book, “Reflections of a Public Man,” to special interest groups to whom he spoke.

Some House Democrats such as Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), who was a principal author of the current House rules, contend that the committee is misinterpreting not only the rule governing the employment of spouses but also the rules on outside income and book royalties.

But many House Democrats view the book sales issue as much more serious than the financial relationship between the Wrights and Mallick. “The book issue is much more troubling,” said Schroeder, who sides with Wright on the spouse employment issue. “It really looks like he was trying to get around the honoraria limit.”