House to Name All Bad-Check Writers : Ethics: Lawmakers vote, 426-0, to disclose identities of 355 current, former members of Congress responsible for overdrafts. The bank’s manager resigns under pressure.

Responding to its most explosive political scandal in years, the House voted unanimously early today to authorize disclosure of the banking records of 355 current and former members of Congress who wrote bad checks at the House bank during a recent 39-month period.

The outcome, in a vote of 426 to 0, was a victory for Republicans who had forced Democratic leaders to reverse their earlier positions and go along with the unprecedented exposure that could be politically fatal for an untold number of members from both parties.

Earlier, the House voted, 391 to 36, to adopt recommendations by the House Ethics Committee that would identify 24 current and former members of the House as the worst “abusers” of the casually run House bank. They would be named in 10 days and all other authors of bad checks would be disclosed within five days after that.

All told, more than 20,000 rubber checks were written, while the so-called worst offenders were themselves responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in overdrafts.

“This is the fastest way to get it all out in the open and get us back to the business we were elected to do,” said Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) in advocating full disclosure.

Earlier in the evening, as floor debate intensified in anticipation of the late-night authorization vote, the scandal took another, unexpected turn when House Sergeant-at-Arms Jack Russ--who was responsible for the bank’s operation--resigned under pressure from the House Ethics Committee. He was replaced temporarily by Werner Brandt, a top aide to Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.).

In another sign of the political sensitivity of the issue, the Senate voted, 95 to 2, for a resolution that noted the writing of rubber checks was limited to the House, since the Senate has no comparable bank and no plans to establish one. Several senators complained on the floor that their constituents thought they, as well as House members, were writing bad checks.

Foley, who at first resisted full disclosure on grounds that it might be unfair to lawmakers who unknowingly wrote bad checks or simply accepted the prevailing view that members could draw advances on their pay, had predicted the full-disclosure measure would pass by a strong majority.

Like others who took part in the emotional debate, Foley said inaccurate information could be released to the public because of the bank’s sloppy bookkeeping practices.

Nevertheless, he said: “We are not hiding any information, embarrassing as it may be, misleading as it may be, unjust as it may be. . . . We are going to release it.”

While some members of the House protested that it was unfair to make after-the-fact rules about banking practices that had been permitted for the four decades of the bank’s operation, most agreed that public disclosure was essential and unstoppable.

“This is gut-wrenching,” said Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Kan.). “But if we’re honest and open I think the folks at home will understand it.”

Added House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel, (R-Ill.): “Full disclosure is the only answer.” Michel co-authored the second resolution with his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.

The solution reached Thursday night was a sharp contrast to the Ethics Committee’s recommendation to limit the disclosure to the 24 worst cases and withhold banking records of all others who wrote checks without enough funds to cover them.

The identities of those who had written the rubber checks were not known officially as the House considered the disclosure rules. But it was widely believed there would be many more Democrats on the list in view of their 268-166 majority in the House. There is one independent in the 435-member body.

Leaders of both parties were expected to be named. Foley and House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), for example, were among 62 House members who already have acknowledged that they wrote some bad checks.

Rep. Charles Hatcher (D-Ga.) told the Associated Press that he overdrew his account as many as 780 times over 39 months because he understood he was permitted to write checks up to the amount of his next monthly paycheck.

Despite efforts this week by Foley and Gephardt to get party backing for the committee’s proposal for only limited disclosure, they reversed themselves when Democratic whips said they did not have the votes to stop the GOP-led drive for full disclosure.

“It’s politically untenable to resist disclosure at this time,” said Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.), who said he had cashed 75 or more bad checks himself during the period from July, 1988, to last Oct. 3.

“I wish we had done this a long time ago,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), who led a Republican move for full disclosure of all bad-check writers.

The bank, criticized by the ethics panel for sloppy operating practices, was shut down Dec. 31 by order of the House.

Some members complained that for four decades the bank had allowed members of the House to overdraw their accounts up to the amount of their next month’s take-home pay--in effect taking an advance on their next paycheck. Others said the bank at times did not inform members that their accounts were overdrawn.

While overdrafts had to be made up, and the bank never lost any money because of its practices, public exposure of thousands of bad checks written by hundreds of members of Congress caused a public uproar.

Russ, the sergeant-at-arms who became the first casualty of the bank scandal when he resigned Thursday, cashed 19 personal checks at the facility for a total of $56,000, although he had no account there himself.

He is recovering from a gunshot wound in his cheek that he said was inflicted by a robber who accosted him while he was walking his dog one morning a few weeks ago near the Capitol. Police, however, have cast some doubt on his story, suggesting that perhaps the wound was self-inflicted.

In a recent interview on CNN, he had acknowledged feeling “like a small kid walking into school who is set upon. I have one thing in my favor . . . I know the truth and it will come out,” an apparent reference to both the shooting and the check scandal.

Russ sent his resignation, in writing, to the Speaker after it became clear that he would not be able to hold on to his job.

The pending disclosure decision prompted a series of confessions by House members on their authorship of bad checks at the casually run House bank.

“I called the posse and gave up,” said Wilson. He said he favored full disclosure of his banking habits and those of his colleagues. When asked whether it might doom his chances for reelection, Wilson replied: “The voters won’t give you a badge of honor for it but it’s not a show-stopper. Like voting for a pay raise.”

Why did Wilson do it? “Irresponsibility,” he said. “I’ve always lived from paycheck to paycheck.”

Rep. Peter H. Kostmayer (D-Pa.), who also acknowledged that he wrote 19 bad checks totaling less than $9,000, said simply: “I made a mistake. The question is whether 19 checks for less than $9,000 is enough to end Peter Kostmayer’s career.”

Driving the House’s decision was a widespread feeling that the issue could not be evaded and that it was better to authorize full disclosure and let those on the list explain the matter to their constituents.

The scandal over the House bank has been simmering ever since the General Accounting Office reported in September that thousands of bad checks had been written by members of the House without any penalty or interest charge.

At first, Foley ordered a halt to the bank’s practice of covering bad checks but balked at further action. Under considerable pressure from Republicans and some members of his own party, however, he relented and supported an Ethics Committee investigation of the bank. He also agreed to permanently closing the bank on Dec. 31.

Foley at first argued that no taxpayer funds were involved in the massive overdrafts since the House bank was more like a “check writer’s cooperative” than a normal banking institution. But a wave of voter resentment at a congressional perquisite that was not available to ordinary citizens forced a retreat by the Speaker and his high command.

When the ethics panel recommended on a 10-4 vote to identify only the 24 worst abusers and not disclose the names of all the current and former members who had written at least one bad check during the more than three years under scrutiny, a furor exploded.

Led by the four dissenting Republicans on the committee and Lewis, the third-ranking GOP leader, a demand for disclosure of the names of all those who wrote bad checks picked up steam on both sides of the aisle.

Foley, along with Gephardt and House Majority Whip David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), threw his support behind the Ethics Committee recommendation but then abruptly reversed himself Thursday. His Democratic lieutenants told him they did not have the votes to stop the drive for complete exposure of House bank records.

At that point, Foley devised a bipartisan compromise that would support the Ethics Committee’s report on its five-month investigation but also provide for total disclosure that the Republicans had been demanding.

BACKGROUND

House Sergeant-at-Arms Jack Russ, who resigned Thursday after nine years, has been at the center of the House bank furor since it became public last fall. As head of the House bank, he had come under attack for not reforming the system and for cashing his own bad checks there. Russ, 46, has said that he had little to do with the bank’s day-to-day operations. His other duties in the $119,120-a-year post included helping to run the Capitol Police force, escorting dignitaries and maintaining order in the House chamber. He is recovering from a gunshot wound in his mouth that he says was inflicted by robbers near the Capitol recently.