Lawmaking--a personal business.

• Author: Jones, Rich
• Position: Inside the State House: Lessons from the Speaker - Book Review

Inside rite State House: Lessons from the Speaker by Ralph G. Wright. May 2005. CQ Press, Washington, D.C., 236 pages. Paperback, $29.95.

Ralph Wright, Vermont's longest serving speaker is a legend. A staunch liberal, be was elected in 1978 and presided over the House from 1985 through 1994, more than half the time with his party in the minority.

A street smart and savvy politician, Wright gives the reader "lessons" through amusing and poignant stories illustrating how the legislature really works.

Wright's most important lesson is the critical role human behavior plays in the work of legislatures. To succeed, lawmakers, especially leaders, need an in-depth understanding of people and what motivates them.

Congressman Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neil, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, famously quipped that all politics are local. Speaker Wright expands on that by stressing that politics are "a very personal business."

Wright, an astute observer of people, used this knowledge to advance the causes he championed. Time and again he describes how he drew on his knowledge of people to persuade lawmakers to come around to his often controversial positions.

A wonderful storyteller, Wright introduces a number of characters with such candor and detail that readers will find themselves in the middle of the legislative process. Among the colleagues he writes about is Representative John Francis Murphy, chair of the General and Military Affairs Committee, who was known simply as "the General." Murphy was a canny pol who could "read the mood on the floor better than anyone else in the legislature."

In Vermont, General and Military Affairs was a "landfill" committee made up of members who had either crossed the speaker or were otherwise legislatively challenged. Wright found himself on this committee in his third term. He was devastated. He thought he was in line to chair the Health and Welfare Committee where he served the previous four years.

At the first meeting, Murphy chided Wright for his past committee work that focused on issues and informed trim that he was now going to learn about "the other stuff that makes this place run." It was here that Wright honed his...