Word: wrights
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...That's what leaders are for, to take the heat," drawled House Speaker Jim Wright, sporting his trademark country-boy grin. It has seldom been hotter than it has been since plans for a 51% pay hike for top Government officials, including members of Congress, touched off a political fire storm...
Disk jockeys across the country broadcast Wright's telephone number, provoking a barrage of angry calls from outraged citizens. Republican Senator Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire juxtaposed a bandit's mask with a portrait of Wright, solemnly intoning that "a pay raise without a vote is stealing." Later Humphrey came as close to blows as Senators ever do with fellow Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, who favors the pay hike, during a heated exchange at a committee hearing on the subject. Some of Wright's House colleagues, the vast majority of whom want the raise, have started comparing him, unfavorably...
Unless rejected by both houses of Congress, the raise, recommended by a salary-review commission composed of wealthy Washington insiders, will automatically go into effect this week. But last week Wright, who had steadfastly refused to schedule a vote on the pay increase for Congress, judges and other high-ranking Government officials, tried to turn the thermostat down a notch. He conducted his own confidential poll of House members -- with results startlingly different from those obtained by news organizations. Nearly 60% of the lawmakers told Wright they wanted the raise to go through without a vote. Polls in which members...
...chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Bill Gray (D-Penn.), predicted there would be "no pay raise, no change" in the lawmakers' salary. Gray also said he doubted the House would move to ban speaking fees and other honoraria--a plan favored by Wright in return for the raise...
...vote and Wright's subsequent announcement came after Majority Leader Thomas Foley (D-Wash.), presiding over yesterday's session, refused to recognize a pay-raise opponent who wanted to introduce a resolution calling for a vote on the hike...