Wright Renews Bid for an Early Hearing but Panel Says It Must Complete Inquiry

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), increasingly annoyed by the delays in resolving misconduct charges against him, Tuesday renewed his appeal for an early hearing to present his defense to the House Ethics Committee.

“I am very anxious to have the opportunity to appear and present my side,” Wright told reporters at a briefing. “I’m not complaining--I’m just asserting my wishes.”

Within minutes after his public statement, however, members of the House panel rebuffed the Speaker by saying that they must conclude their inquiry into an oil deal that benefited Wright and make other preparations before he can be heard.

Speaker Irked

Advised that the Speaker seemed irked by the length of the investigation that is now almost a year old, Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento) replied: “If we all allow ourselves to be irked, we won’t be able to do this in the proper manner. It will all be worked out in time.”

Rep. John T. Myers (R-Ind.), the ranking GOP member of the panel, said that the committee’s plan for a hearing when Wright can present his defense personally has been “put on the back burner” while the panel attempts to finish questioning five witnesses about a controversial Texas oil investment that provided Wright with a profit of about $350,000.

This should postpone any trial-like hearing for at least a week, he said.

Mood of Anxiety

The highly publicized examination of the Speaker’s financial affairs--along with the possibility that he may not remain in his leadership post if the committee finds him guilty of violating House rules--has created a mood of anxiety and frustration among many House members.

While Congress is moving ahead with its legislative agenda, a lobbyist with strong ties to the Democratic Party on Capitol Hill said: “Things are glum.”

Democratic Majority Leader Thomas S. Foley of Washington and his Republican counterpart, Rep. Robert H. Michel of Illinois, made a point of cautioning members of Congress against attacking or defending Wright during floor speeches in the House.

Rules Violation

Michel said that discussions of matters pending before the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct--as the ethics panel is formally known--is a violation of House rules.

“They make matters worse, not better,” the GOP leader said. “They may vent some of the frustrations and anxieties felt by members on both sides, but that alone is no justification. The rules which govern this House are rules which require reasoned judgment, not emotional outbursts.”

Wright, who is now often trailed through Capitol corridors by reporters eager to question him about the ethics investigation, sharply insisted again Tuesday that he had done nothing wrong.

He defended his 1985 insertion into the Congressional Record of remarks praising a series of family discussion videotapes sold by the Pacific Institute, a company that was paying his wife, Betty, a salary of $36,000 a year at the time.

“I have no apologies,” he said. “It wasn’t a promotion--it was a compliment . . . I think it’s a tempest in a teapot.”

Later, at his regular meeting with reporters before the House convened, Wright described how he had appeared before the ethics panel last September and answered questions for an entire day about the five original allegations lodged against him last May by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

“I blissfully left, believing I had answered everything on their minds,” Wright recalled.

To his shock and surprise, the Speaker said, he was confronted last month with a new set of charges that he had improperly accepted gifts worth $145,000 from a person with a direct interest in legislation--Ft. Worth developer George A. Mallick Jr.--and had plotted to evade a House ceiling on speaking fees by arranging bulk sales of his book.

“It’s been kind of a moving target, somewhat difficult to respond to,” he said.

The Speaker’s problems will form a backdrop today for a hearing on congressional ethics by a bipartisan House task force appointed by Wright and Michel at the start of the year.

Fazio, a member of the ethics panel who has voted to bring charges against the Speaker, is task force chairman with Rep. Lynn Martin (R-Ill.) as co-chairman. They will preside over discussions of the House ethics rules by former members of the Ethics Committee and former members of Congress.