Funding For Foley’s Spokane Office Attacked Rep. Smith Calls It Easy Choice In Budget-Cutting Process

People across the nation call on Tom Foley’s Spokane office with a variety of problems and requests, says Janet Gilpatrick, who works there.

But Rep. Linda Smith, R-Vancouver, did not know the office existed until a California man called the former House speaker’s office by mistake, while trying to reach Smith.

When the man told Smith about the office, she was surprised, she said. When she found out it was paid for by taxpayers, she was appalled.

“That doesn’t make any logical sense that once a speaker leaves office they have any purpose that should be paid for by the public,” Smith said Wednesday.

Smith plans to introduce legislation today to eliminate federal money for the offices of the three surviving former House speakers - Foley, Carl Albert of Oklahoma and Jim Wright of Texas.

She said Congress is making tough choices about how to balance the budget and this is an easy choice. A prepared release from Smith’s office called the former speakers’ offices “the height of arrogance.”

Taxpayers spend about $200,000 a year for Foley’s office at 601 W. First and the three people who staff it. The former speaker also gets a pension of more than $120,000 a year.

Smith said she thinks Foley’s office is even more of a waste of money because he was “thrown out” by the voters last year.

“How would you like it if you fired somebody, and still had to pay for them to have an office?” Smith asked.

Foley’s staff did not want to comment on Smith’s legislation, and Foley is out of the country until next week.

But the office did provide a list of their duties.

“Former presidents and former speakers, uniquely among former officials of our government, are called upon with great frequency by the public at large,” says a publication from Foley’s office.

Still working for Foley in Spokane are Gilpatrick, Shannon Waechter, and James Headley - all former district aides to Foley.

The office serves as a legislative and historical reference source for members of Congress, students and historians; serves as a resource for journalists; answers a large volume of correspondence, providing information and assistance to citizens; and assists in the cataloguing of documents from the speaker’s archives.

The perk is scheduled to end in 1999, even if Smith’s bill dies. Congress eliminated lifetime office support for speakers two years ago and gave them instead support for five years after they leave office.

That is not good enough for Smith. “Not only does he have staff, he has franking privileges,” she said, referring to the congressional perquisite allowing free use of the mails.

“A lot of people don’t want the people still in Congress to have franking,” she said.

George Nethercutt, R-Spokane, was less vehement about eliminating his predecessor’s office, but said the current Congress has an “obligation to look at each and every item of spending. It may be that former speakers ought to be funded with private funds.”

Like Foley’s office, Albert’s office in McAlester, Okla. does “any number of things,” said Lois Washington, Albert’s administrative assistant.

Albert, who left office in 1977, is 87 years old, and is not as active as he used to be, but University of Oklahoma professor Ron Peters says the office has been useful. “Albert has been very involved in the community and the state,” said Peters, an expert on the speakership.

Albert’s and Wright’s offices are scheduled to be eliminated under the five-year rule in 1998, five years after the law was enacted.

, DataTimes