Jim Wright

In 1971, Wright was appointed a Democratic deputy whip, picked for ideological balance. In this role, he was assigned responsibility for persuading Southern Democrats to support House Democratic leadership.[27] Though Wright never chaired a House committee or a high-profile subcommittee, he used his outgoing personality to obtain commitments from friends and his two decades of seniority on the Public Works Committee to amass obligations from colleagues by helping secure funding for federal buildings, roads, highway interchanges, and water projects. These efforts left him well-positioned to campaign for a position in the House leadership when a vacancy occurred.[28]

In the December 1976 House Democratic leadership elections, Majority Leader Tip O'Neill faced no opposition to succeed Carl Albert as Speaker of the House. The contest to succeed O'Neill included Wright, Phillip Burton, Richard Bolling, and John McFall. Burton was assumed to be the frontrunner, and on the first ballot, he received 106 votes, Bolling 81, Wright 77, and McFall 31. According to Democratic caucus rules, the low finisher was obligated to withdraw, which McFall did. On the second ballot, Burton received 107 votes, Wright 95, and Bolling 93. With Bolling eliminated, on the third ballot, Wright won with 148 votes to 147 for Burton.[29]

Speaker Wright, 1991;
Oil portrait by Marshall Bouldin III.

When the 100th Congress convened on January 6, 1987, Wright was elected Speaker of the House (254–173 over Republican Robert H. Michel),[30] succeeding Tip O'Neill, who had retired after 10 years in the post. At the time, Wright stated that being speaker of the House "is the greatest responsibility that can come to a lawmaker anywhere in the world."[31]

In July 1988, he chaired the Democratic Party convention that nominated Michael Dukakis for president. During that convention, Wright introduced John F. Kennedy Jr. for Kennedy's first televised speech.[4] Almost 25 years earlier, on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, in his last speech before being assassinated, praised Wright's service in the Congress, saying "and here in Fort Worth he has contributed to its growth. He speaks for Fort Worth and he speaks for the country, and I don't know any city that is better represented in the Congress of the United States than Fort Worth."[32]

While Dukakis lost the 1988 presidential election to Republican George H. W. Bush, Democrats retained control of the House in the coinciding congressional elections, thus when the 101st Congress opened on January 3, 1989, Wright was re-elected as speaker. According to historian Julian E. Zelizer, the majority Democrats ran roughshod over the Republican (GOP) minority. They minimized the number of staff positions available to the minority, kept them out of decision-making, and gerrymandered their home districts. Firebrand Republican Newt Gingrich argued that American democracy was being ruined by the Democrats' tactics and that the GOP had to destroy the system before it could be saved. Cooperation in governance, says Zelizer, was put aside as they deposed Speaker Wright and regained power. Gingrich gained support from the media (always looking for scandal) and from good government forces in his crusade to persuade Americans that the system was, in Gingrich's words, “morally, intellectually and spiritually corrupt.” Gingrich did force out Wright, but after he became Speaker Gingrich was himself forced out and scandal ruined the careers of other top GOP leaders.[33]

In May 1989, controversy arose when media reports revealed that Wright's top assistant, John Mack, had violently attacked a woman 16 years earlier. The woman, Pamela Small, was hit repeatedly with a hammer, stabbed and slashed with a knife and left for dead. Small survived the attack, and reported it to the police. Mack was convicted of malicious wounding and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but was paroled after serving 27 months. Mack, whose brother was married to Wright's daughter, was given a clerk's job in the Capitol upon his release. He went on to become the executive director of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee and served as Wright's chief legislative strategist.[34][35] Critics, including feminist activist Andrea Dworkin, alleged that Wright manipulated the legal system to get Mack off and, subsequently, protected him from media scrutiny.[36] Amid the blistering public criticism, John Mack resigned from his post on May 11,[35] and House members of both parties began to question whether Wright could long-remain as speaker.[37]

In 1988 Wright became the target of an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee. Their report in early 1989 implied that he had used bulk purchases of his book, Reflections of a Public Man, to earn speaking fees in excess of the allowed maximum, and that his wife, Betty, was given a job and perks to avoid the limit on gifts. Faced with an increasing loss of effectiveness, Wright tendered his resignation as Speaker on May 31, 1989, the resignation to become effective on the selection of a successor.[38] He was the first Speaker to resign because of a scandal. On June 6, the Democratic Caucus brought Wright's speakership to an end by selecting his replacement, Tom Foley of Washington, and on June 30 Wright resigned his seat in Congress.[39]

The incident was controversial and was a part of the increasing partisan infighting that has plagued the Congress ever since. The original charges were filed by Newt Gingrich[40] in 1988 and their effect propelled Gingrich's own career advancement to the Speaker's chair.[4]

Michael Parenti, critic of the national security state, attributed Wright's forced resignation to the critical questions he was raising in the late 1980s with regard to CIA covert actions in Nicaragua.[41] Wright had not only criticized Reagan's policy, but taken the extremely unusual step of entering into negotiations with the Nicaraguan government as Speaker.[42]

William K. Black claims that Wright's interventions in the Savings and Loan (S&L) crisis "were decisive in forcing him to resign in disgrace from the House". Black wrote that Wright had been saved from financial ruin and elevated to Speaker of the House by massive campaign contributions from control frauds like Charles Keating. The control frauds managed to get hundreds of executives of S&Ls, many legitimate, to talk with their representatives in the US congress to delay effective governmental action against the frauds. This action only increased (a) the billions of dollars their ultimate failures cost the US taxpayers and (b) the magnitude of the resulting scandal. Wright's account of these facts was very different, citing both abuse of power by regulators, and money laundering by S&Ls in the profits diverted to Nicaragua in the Iran-Contra scandal.[43] The scandal robbed Wright's Democratic party of the "sleaze factor" issue in the 1988 presidential election, thereby handing the election to the Republican George H. W. Bush, according to Black. He resigned to avoid the official documentation of his role in this that would almost certainly have come from hearings by the United States House Committee on Ethics, as it did for the Keating Five.[44] Wright's personal and public account of why he resigned was very different from that cited by William Black, who claimed Wright abused his power and certainly had reason to protect his own position and decisions at the Federal Home Loan Bank.[45]

The charges filed against Wright did not mention Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra operations from 1984 through most of 1986 involved the secret governmental support of Contra military and paramilitary activities in Nicaragua, despite Congressional prohibition on the support. The Reagan White House was very involved in the sale of U.S. arms to Iran in contravention of stated U.S. policy and in possible violation of arms-export controls. In late November 1986, Reagan Administration officials announced that some of the proceeds from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran had been diverted to the Contras. President Bush's pardon of Secretary Weinberger on December 24, 1992, pre-empted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness.[46]

A report by special counsel implicated him in a number of influence peddling charges, such as Vernon Savings and Loan, and attempting to get William K. Black fired as the deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) under Gray. However, the charges against him concluded that, "while the Congressman's dealings with representatives of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board may have been intemperate, the committee was not persuaded that there is reason to believe that he exercised undue influence in his dealings with that agency."[47][48]

• Barry, John. The Ambition and the Power: The Fall of Jim Wright: A True Story of Washington. New York: Viking Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8317-8302-8. (Paperback: Penguin, 1992. ISBN 0-14-010488-7)
• Flippen, J. Brooks (2018). Speaker Jim Wright: Power, Scandal, and the Birth of Modern Politics. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. ASIN B076H8ZL1F.
• Wright, Jim. Balance of Power: Presidents and Congress from the Era of McCarthy to the Age of Gingrich. Turner Publications, 1996. ISBN 1-57036-278-5.
• Wright, Jim. Reflections of a Public Man. Fort Worth, Texas: Madison Publishing Company, 1984.
• Wright, Jim. The Flying Circus: Pacific War—1943—As Seen Through A Bombsight. Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2005. ISBN 1-59228-656-9.
• Wright, Jim. The Coming Water Famine. New York: Coward-McCann, 1966.
• Zelizer, Julian E. Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party (Penguin, 2020).