May 31, 1989: The Fall of Speaker Jim Wright

May 31, 1989: The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Jim Wright of Texas, resigns his post, which he had held for the last 2 years. He also resigns the seat in Congress, representing Fort Worth, Texas, to which he was first elected in 1954. The reason? He used bulk purchases of his book, Reflections of a Public Man, to earn speaking fees in excess of the maximum amount allowed by a Congressional ethics resolution.

That's it. No actual crime. Nobody died. Nobody got hurt. Nobody's rights -- civil or human -- were violated. As he admitted in his resignation speech: "Have I made mistakes? Oh, yeah, I've made a lot of mistakes, mistakes in judgement." But, apparently, some people thought he had to resign over it.

Leading the charge against Wright and his ethics violations was a feisty young Republican Congressman, originally from Pennsylvania, but representing a district in Georgia. His name was Newt Gingrich, and he, too, would become Speaker... and have to resign, in part due to ethics violations, including (but hardly limited to) using his position to increase sales of a video class he was "teaching," an up-to-date version of the very thing he used to tar Wright as "the least ethical Speaker of the House in the nation's history." He wasn't, but Gingrich was.

Gingrich would be succeeded as Speaker in 1999 by Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois. He resigned after the Republicans lost the majority in the 2006 elections. He would later go to prison for what would once have been quaintly called morals charges.

He was succeeded as the Republicans' House Leader by John Boehner of Ohio. He became Speaker after the election of 2010. He resigned in 2015, not because he'd done anything illegal (that we knew of), but because he'd lost control of his own caucus.

He was succeeded as the Republicans' House Leader, and as Speaker, by Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had been the Republican nominee for Vice President in 2012, under Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. He decided not to run for re-election in 2018, not because he'd done anything illegal (that we knew of), but because he thought his Party would lose control of Congress -- correctly, as it turned out. He was succeeded as the Republicans' House Leader by Kevin McCarthy of California.

UPDATE: When the Republicans regained the majority in 2022, it took 15 votes of their caucus to confirm McCarthy as Speaker, and he got forced out after only 9 months, in favor of Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

Wright doesn't sound so bad now, does he? He would go on to write more books, and teach at Texas Christian University in his native Fort Worth. In 2014, at the age of 91, he was denied the right to vote in a local election, because of the unconstitutional voter-ID law that the Tea Party-dominated Texas legislature had passed. He died the next year, one of the last surviving people to have been in the motorcade through Dallas when President Kennedy was killed half a century ago.

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May 31, 1989 was a Wednesday. German soccer star Marco Reus was born.

Football was out of season. The NHL season had ended 5 days before, when the Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup, beating the Montreal Canadiens in the Finals. The NBA Playoffs were in the Conference Finals. The Detroit Pistons beat the Chicago Bulls, 94-85 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan. The Los Angeles Lakers had already completed a sweep of the Phoenix Suns. In the Finals, the Pistons swept the Lakers.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-5 at Yankee Stadium. Andy Hawkins, not yet a Yankee washout, outpitched Steve Trout, former Yankee washout. Both had previously been effective pitchers for other teams.

Don Mattingly went 4-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-2 with 3 walks and 3 stolen bases. Dave Winfield missed the entire season due to a back injury. Rookie Ken Griffey Jr. went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The New York Mets beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Chris Speier not only went 0-for-5 for the Giants, but his mishandling of a Mookie Wilson grounder in the top of the 10th inning allowed Keith Miller and Kevin Elster to score the winning runs. This made Randy Myers, despite a blown save, the winning pitcher, in relief of Bob Ojeda.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Dave Parker hit a home run to put the A's ahead in the top of the 10th inning. But in the bottom of the 10th, the Sox tied it, and then former Yankee catcher Rick Cerone singled Ellis Burks home with the winning run.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Texas Rangers, 8-5 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Cal Ripken went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Barry Bonds went 3-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-4 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the California Angels, 4-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Robin Yount went 0-for-1 with 3 walks. Paul Molitor went 2-for-3.

* The Houston Astros beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Minnesota Twins were leading the Kansas City Royals, 7-1 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City, when the umpires stopped the game due to rain. The game was called, making the Twins the winners. George Brett did not play.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn went 1-for-3 with an RBI.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos, 9-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.