
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 30, 1990                   TAG: 9005300245
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

HOUSE MEMBERS EARN MILLIONS FOR SPEECHES

Special interests paid nearly $600,000 last year for speeches by a half-dozen top leaders in the House. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the tax-writing committee, took in the most with $285,000, according to financial disclosure reports made public Tuesday.

Rank-and-file members shared in the speechmaking windfall to supplement their $89,500 salaries. All told, House members accepted millions of dollars for speaking and writing, and many got more for talking than the average family earns in a year.

Virginia Congressmen L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, Jim Olin, D-Roanoke, and Rich Boucher, D-Abingdon accepted no honorariums in 1989.

The flow of speaking fees, mostly from special interests that ranged from colleges to banks, was hardly slowed by the allegations of financial improprieties that led last year to the resignations of Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, and Rep. Tony Coelho, D-Calif., the majority whip.

House members are allowed to keep honoraria equivalent to 30 percent of their salaries and most give what is left to charity. Rostenkowski traditionally spreads the excess among churches and schools in his hometown of Chicago. Republican Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia handed over $29,304 of his $67,491 in fees to the Atlanta zoo.

by CNB