WASHINGTON – Congress approved legislation late Friday to repeal the Wright amendment, potentially resolving a decades-old battle over the role of Dallas Love Field in North Texas.

The bill to phase out flight restrictions at the airport cleared the House overwhelmingly in a late-night vote before lawmakers departed for a pre-election recess.

The legislation won Senate passage under unanimous consent earlier Friday after months of pressure by Texas Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn to win over a final detractor, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

President Bush is expected to sign the measure as early as next week.

"It's a great relief to have a final solution," said Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell, whose district includes Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. "The fact that none of the parties are completely happy and all of the parties are relieved to have it over should be a sign that it's a good agreement."

Lawmakers acknowledged that the Wright battle may not be over. Opponents of the deal are expected to challenge the legislation in court.

The Wright legislation stalled this summer under criticism over its treatment of federal antitrust laws, and supporters in Congress fought hard for language to help shield the deal from a long court fight.

The legislation will repeal Wright in 2014, implementing a June agreement by the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and D/FW Airport.

It would immediately allow flights anywhere from Love Field, as long as they first stopped inside the nine-state Wright perimeter.

The agreement would also cut the number of available gates at Love from 32 to 20, part of a plan to compensate for an expected increase in noise, pollution and congestion. Nineteen gates are used now.

On Congress' last day, the House turned out to be the greatest source of contention over repealing Wright.

House members planned to clear their bill under suspension of normal rules, a procedure often used for uncontroversial measures.

Suspension bills often pass without recorded votes, but objections to the Wright legislation forced proponents to corral the support of two-thirds of those present. A heated evening debate had opponents sparring over the antitrust issue, while also arguing over the bill's potential benefits.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the bill "will continue vestiges of the Wright amendment" until 2025, when gate arrangements expire under the deal.

In a departure from many congressional debates, supporters and opponents of the Wright agreement weren't split by party affiliation or geography.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, argued against a frequent ally, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, whose district includes Love Field.

Mr. Sensenbrenner, recalling the "Don't Mess with Texas" bumper stickers in the House garage, said, "Tonight is one of the nights where we ought to mess with Texas.

"This is the most anti-consumer, anti-free-enterprise legislation that has come before this House in a long time," he said.

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, was distributing red "Vote Yes" fliers to members on the floor; Ms. Johnson had her own yellow fliers supporting the bill.

The final tally, which came just past 10 p.m. Dallas time, was 386-22.

A tough fight had been expected in the Senate, where rules and traditions allow a single member the power to block legislation.

By early Thursday afternoon, after House members from North Texas had forged a path for their bill to reach the House floor, the pressure had grown on Ms. Hutchison and Mr. Cornyn, both Republicans.

Efforts in recent weeks to find language that was acceptable to Mr. Leahy and the North Texas parties had failed, even after changing the antitrust language from an explicit to implicit exemption to win over the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Word came from the Texas senators' staffs later Thursday afternoon that Mr. Leahy could come to an agreement for bringing the Wright bill up under unanimous consent, a procedure used for uncontroversial measures.

The senators and their staffs started working on statements to be read on the Senate floor.

Ms. Hutchison reached out to House members, e-mailing and talking with Ms. Granger past midnight to ask her to wait for a Senate bill to come to the House to prevent further procedural delays.

By Friday morning, Ms. Hutchison was sitting in a cloakroom off the Senate floor working out how the bill would come up under unanimous consent.

Mr. Leahy had been pushing a wilderness bill to move under unanimous consent, a measure that largely affected Vermont and New Hampshire.

Asked later if she was holding up his bill, Ms. Hutchison smiled. "Why would someone do that?

"Let's just say that we came to an agreement to pass both bills," she said.

The bill passed the Senate in less than a minute just before 1 p.m. Dallas time.

Then Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Leahy engaged in a colloquy, a discussion on the Senate floor that allows lawmakers to share their thinking for the record.

The dialogue does not offer the force of law but could help judges glean congressional intent in a court challenge.

"Senator Cornyn and I share a concern about providing antitrust immunity to agreements involving private parties," Mr. Leahy said. "While I would prefer greater clarity on this point in the bill, I am pleased that Senator Cornyn and I agree that this is an entirely unique situation, which should not be repeated."

Mr. Cornyn agreed that "the legislation contemplated here should not be a model for any future arrangement.

"In no way can I imagine a situation arising with a set of facts remotely similar to that created in Dallas by the passage of the Wright amendment," he said.

Mr. Cornyn, who serves on the judiciary committee with Mr. Leahy, said later that ending the impasse was a matter of talking through the details of the Wright law and the uniqueness of the situation.

"We had to explain to him that actually this increased competition rather than decreased competition," Mr. Cornyn said. "That was one of the hard things for people to understand because of the unique nature of the Wright amendment."

Ms. Hutchison, who urged North Texas officials early in the year to come up with a solution, said the Wright legislation took "an inordinate amount of time for a bill that shouldn't have been this complicated."

"I have to say that in my 12 years in the Senate, the hardest thing that I've ever had to explain was the Wright amendment to outside people," she said.

Dallas Mayor Laura Miller was euphoric Friday. She'd feared the Senate would be the bigger obstacle. Ms. Miller said she was confident the terms of the bill would protect Dallas from losing a court challenge, due to a dedicated North Texas delegation and attorneys who worked around the clock.

"Without the language crafted in the Senate ... we would have a huge problem," Ms. Miller said.

She acknowledged that the lawsuits filed by Love Terminal Partners, the owners of the former Legend Airlines terminal slated to be demolished under the Wright agreement, will continue to be a thorn in her side.

But Dallas will not wait for a court ruling, she said, as the Wright agreement directs the city to proceed immediately.

Love Terminal Partners' "tactic is to keep the pressure up, because they see we have a great chance of being successful," Ms. Miller said. "In the court of law, I sure hope a judge would say...[they] have frivolously filed this lawsuit."

Bill Brewer, a Dallas lawyer representing Love Terminal Partners, said a lawsuit he filed Thursday – his third pending suit regarding Wright – seeks to void the city's involvement in the agreement.

He also said changes that were achieved by the judiciary committee leaders "saved the right of consumers and others who are affected by this to go to court."

The legislation does not specify which gates must be demolished, Mr. Brewer noted, potentially protecting the Legend building.

Friday's actions followed a nearly two-year fight over the Wright amendment and Love Field.

In November 2004, Southwest announced that it would lobby Congress to lift the flight restrictions. American and D/FW vigorously opposed any changes.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, introduced legislation the following May to repeal Wright completely, spurring lawmakers nationwide to pick up the cause to win cheaper flights to and from North Texas.

But Mr. Hensarling decided not to back the compromise agreement, saying he could not support the nation's only congressional mandate on the number of gates at a local airport.

He sat quietly in the back row of the House on Friday evening to watch the debate. He ultimately voted against the bill.

Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Plano, who co-sponsored the original Wright repeal legislation with Mr. Hensarling, said the compromise was "not perfect" but still an agreement worthy of support.

Staff writer Emily Ramshaw in Dallas contributed to this report.

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Key events in the history of the Wright amendment:

1979
In an effort to protect a young Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport from competition at Dallas Love Field, Congress approves the Wright amendment, named for U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright of Fort Worth. The law, which took effect the following year, limits flights from Love Field to airports in Texas and its adjoining four states, but allows commuter planes with 56 seats or fewer to fly farther.

1997
Congress approves the Shelby amendment, adding Alabama, Kansas and Mississippi to the Wright territory.

2000
April: Legend Airlines starts service from its own terminal at Love to Los Angeles and Washington with modified 56-seat jets. Continental Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines also launch Love service.

December: Legend declares bankruptcy and stops all service. Eventually, American and Delta pull out of Love. Continental remained.

2004
September: Delta announces it will close its D/FW hub, reducing its daily schedule here from 254 nonstop flights to 21.

November: Southwest CEO Gary Kelly says the carrier considered filling some of Delta's void at D/FW, but decided against it. Instead, Mr. Kelly calls for repeal of the Wright law.

D/FW and American express strong support for continuing the Wright limits.

2005
May: U.S. Reps. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, and Sam Johnson, R-Plano, introduce legislation in the House that would fully repeal Wright.

July: Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign introduces a similar bill in the Senate.

November: Missouri becomes the ninth state outside of Texas that can be served from Love Field, when Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., tacks his state onto the Wright perimeter in a transportation-spending bill.

December: Southwest launches new service to St. Louis and Kansas City from Love.

2006
February: Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn urge airline and government leaders in North Texas to come up with a compromise to settle the Wright fight.

March: American returns to Love, with service to St. Louis and Kansas City, as well as to Austin and San Antonio.

June: The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, along with D/FW, Southwest and American, announce a compromise that would allow for immediate through-ticketing and full repeal in 2014.

July: House and Senate committees approve legislation to enact the agreement. But a lobbying effort from the owners of the former Legend terminal, set to be demolished under the deal, draws detractors in Congress. The bills stall over antitrust exemptions.

September: The Senate approves legislation reflecting the North Texas compromise. A vote was set for late Friday in the House.

Once signed into law, legislation approved in the House and Senate on Friday would:

• Immediately allow commercial travel anywhere from Dallas Love Field if planes first stop at an airport in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma or Texas.

• Permit commercial flights to travel nonstop to any destination in the 50 U.S. states or the District of Columbia, beginning eight years after enactment.

• Direct the city of Dallas to reduce and cap the number of gates at Love Field at no more than 20; the airport now has 32 gates, 19 of which are in use.

SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research