Wright Touted Videotape In Congressional Record; Manufacturer Employed Speaker's Wife
House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) used the Congressional Record in 1985 to tout as "incisive and remarkably perceptive" a videotape program being sold by a Seattle company that then employed his wife, Betty, at a salary of $36,000 a year.</br></br>The incident, reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, is the latest example to surface of Wright's efforts on behalf of the Pacific Institute, a company that markets motivational programs for enhancing employee productivity. Betty Wright worked for the company for a little more than three years until the end of 1987.</br></br>It had been previously reported that Wright arranged for the company's founder, Louis Tice, to gain access to other members of Congress and staff members, both in the Capitol and at a Democratic retreat in West Virginia in 1985.</br></br>Though the Wrights' activities on behalf of Pacific Institute are not part of the ongoing investigation of the speaker's financial affairs by the House ethics committee, Betty Wright's previous employment is central to the inquiry. The committee has charged that Wright received $145,000 in improper gifts through salary and perquisites gained by his wife from an investment firm the couple jointly owned with Fort Worth businessman George A. Mallick and his wife.</br></br>The House ethics manual states that "communications {by members} should be drafted so that they do not lend themselves to misinterpretation as an official endorsement from the Congress." An official with Pacific Institute told the Journal that Wright's endorsement had been used in marketing its series of tapes.