Live Opposition

By John S. DeMott

With his bushy eyebrows, courtly manners and singsong Texas drawl, Jim Wright comes across as a curious mix: part kindly uncle, part snake-oil salesman. It was the second ingredient that gave some Democrats pause about the new House Speaker's delivering the party's response to Ronald Reagan's State of the Union address. But Wright was eager for his moment in the limelight, and the result was a pleasant surprise for most of his colleagues. In many ways, the speech by the 17-term House veteran proved more effective than the slickly produced Democratic responses of past years that featured blow-dried young Senators and Congressmen.

A year ago, certain that he would be elected to succeed Tip O'Neill as Speaker, Wright met with network officials, who agreed that a live response would be more newsworthy than a pretaped show. Although it was the turn of House Democrats to give the response, Wright decided that inviting Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd to join him would show that Democrats in both chambers are determined to work in tandem now that they control all of Capitol Hill. Twice last month the two met in Byrd's ornate office to outline what they would say. Each leader drafted his own speech on yellow legal pads, consulting colleagues and party stalwarts like Clark Clifford and Robert Strauss for suggestions.

Tuesday night, Wright dined with his wife Betty in a House restaurant, went to the chamber for the President's address, then rushed to his office to start speaking live just four minutes after Reagan finished. He opened with a historical reference: in the English Commons dating back to the 14th century, he noted, "speakers" were those designated to speak to the King, a role that occasionally cost them their heads. It made the point that loyal opposition plays an important but sometimes thankless role in a democratic system.

Just before airtime, Wright inserted a phrase responding to Reagan's exhortation "Let's go to work." Congress has already been at work for three weeks, Wright replied, and in that time has, over Administration objections, advanced legislation for cleaner water, completion of the interstate highway system and shelter for the homeless. None of the measures were "budget busters," said Wright, though three days later Reagan vetoed the water bill for budgetary reasons.

Wright scrawled, in a last-minute retort to Reagan's stand against "protectionism," a reference to the Democratic push for a trade bill that threatens higher tariffs as a way to tackle the nation's trade imbalance. The Speaker insisted that the goal was reciprocity, doing unto other countries what they are doing to the U.S. The Administration's policies, he said, are ballooning the trade deficit, putting Americans out of work and making "junk metal and scrap paper" the leading exports from the Port of New York.

Wright scolded the President for other policies that revealed a "gap between rhetoric and reality." Just three months after signing a bill to fight drugs, Reagan "wants to cut that pledge in half." Wright described Reagan's proposal to cut education funds for the next fiscal year by 28% as "unilateral disarmament."

Wright made no mention of Iranscam. That was left to Byrd, who said that the dealings created a "gathering sense of mistrust," and added, "Bold actions can succeed, but they must be based on carefully considered and sound judgment." He left no doubt that the Democrats will hold Reagan's feet to the fire on Iranscam. But he also said, the "last two years of the Reagan presidency need not be a period of discord. A weakened President serves no one."

Neither, of course, could quite match Reagan's mastery of television. Nor did their well-worn looks do much to cast their party as the face of the future. But their very lack of New Age video appeal made them seem convincing as leaders of a Congress that will assert itself as an equal branch of Government. Now they face their real challenge, which, as Wright said of the President, involves not rhetoric but reality. Can they present an alternative to Reagan's agenda that is not merely a call for more spending programs financed through higher taxes and dangerous cuts in defense?

With reporting by Hays Gorey/Washington