On Last Day, Wright Laments Legal Fees

Departing House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) said Monday that he has already paid $460,000 in legal bills and still faces other expenses in connection with his long battle against ethics allegations that forced his resignation last week.

“There is in all this a supreme irony,” said Wright, in an interview on his last day in the top House post. Of the yearlong investigation of his financial affairs, he said: “No other institution on earth would spend $2 million in a total, all-encompassing effort to find things of any sort which it might take exception to in the conduct of its chief officer.”

Although he lamented the loss of his influential position, the Texas Democrat said he looks forward to a quieter life after he hands the gavel today to his almost-certain successor, Majority Leader Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.).

No Challengers

Foley spent much of the day telephoning other Democrats to seek their support for naming him Speaker in today’s party caucus, even though he has no opponent and no one is likely to challenge him.

Foley also accompanied Wright, House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) and other congressional leaders to a White House meeting on the turmoil in China.

“Tom Foley, in my judgment, is just a very honorable first-rate individual,” Michel said when reporters questioned him about the probable new Speaker.

Other than the White House visit, Wright’s final day in power was a quiet one. In a farewell chat with a dozen reporters, he said he is not convinced that stronger ethics rules would improve congressional conduct.

When Congress put a limit of $2,000 on a single speaking fee and imposed a ceiling on some forms of outside income, he said, it actually led to an increase in the average speaking fee and the amounts paid to lawmakers by special interest groups.

“Rules can’t define character,” Wright concluded. “You won’t be able to legislate honesty or integrity.”

Wright found fault with the ethics policing that produced charges that he accepted improper gifts and evaded limits on outside income and with the negative public perception of lawmakers that it might have underscored.

“Congress,” he said, “has been subject to periodic waves of revulsion . . . . It’s on balance quite a bit better than is commonly supposed.”

Wright, who spent 34 years in the House, said he could have been a wealthy man if he had not sold property and borrowed money to cover his election campaign expenses during his early years in the House.