Rep. Hunter Hurls His Paycheck Into Fray : ‘Rubbergate’: Constituent outrage over check scandal prompts vow to return half his take-home pay until jobless rate drops 2%.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado), after four days of hearing constituents berate him over his 407 overdrafts at the House bank, says he’s ready to pay for his political sins--literally.

In a rare show of contrition by an elected official, Hunter is vowing to turn back to the U.S. Treasury half of his congressional take-home pay until the unemployment rate in his district drops two points.

Cynics may chortle that the promise is merely a ploy costing $3,934 a month to divert attention from his check-writing problems, and Hunter partly agrees.

“I’m trying to get beyond the check business and emphasize the partnership I have with the families in my district, a lot of whom are going through tough times,” Hunter said Wednesday. “If someone wants to call this is a diversionary tactic, it’s sure an expensive one.”

Last week, as the House of Representatives neared its dramatic vote on disclosing members who ran up overdrafts on their accounts with the House bank, Hunter confessed to having made more than 400, totaling $129,000, so far the second-highest of any current or former California House representative.

Hunter said he assumed he was operating with overdraft protection at the now-closed bank, which simply waited until funds were deposited to cover the excessive payouts.

In another development in the overdraft scandal, former Congressman Jim Bates said at a news conference Wednesday that he believes he wrote three bad checks totaling $18,000 to his losing re-election campaign in 1990.

Later in the day, however, Bates said that a further review of his banking records appeared to show that he had deposited sufficient funds in the House Bank to cover a $10,000 check two days before writing it. Bates said the bank may have been slow in posting his deposit.

Bates said he will make public all of his 89 bad checks, which totaled more than $170,000, within a few days. But he also said he will ask his opponents in the 50th Congressional District race to disclose all overdrawn checks from their personal accounts.

Bates held the news conference to accuse one of those foes, San Diego City Councilman Bob Filner, of failing to disclose financial assets during his victorious 1987 council race. But city elections official Mikel Haas said that Filner was not required to disclose the assets cited by Bates.

Hunter traveled throughout his district during the weekend and early this week, setting up a card table, spreading out his canceled checks from the House bank and absorbing the voters’ vitriol.

He encountered plenty of anger about the checks but even more about the economy.

“They would ask about the checks at first, and then talk about jobs. There are parts of Imperial County where the unemployment rate is 21%,” Hunter said. “The message I was hearing is that they want their representative to share the good times and the bad times.”

Hunter also announced that he will begin paying for his congressional perks, including medical care, a health club and discount meals, at commercial rates.

And he plans to introduce legislation asking the Government Accounting Office to establish the fair market value of congressional perquisites so that other members can do the same.

It was at a session with voters in El Centro Tuesday that Hunter came up with the idea of turning over half his pay to the Treasury. Surprised aides said the notion was spontaneous and unrehearsed.

The pay-back arrangement could cost the six-term veteran $47,203.50 a year, if it takes that long for the jobless rate in Hunter’s district to drop the requisite 2 percentage points.

The average rate last year was 8.4%, and Hunter said Wednesday that it is about 8.9% now.

Hunter said the “base line” rate will be the March unemployment figures for the 45th District, which includes parts of San Diego and Imperial counties. The March numbers will not be released until sometime in May.

Hunter’s contribution to the Treasury will be deducted from his paycheck before he ever sees it and deposited into the Congressional Federal Credit Union, which does have overdraft protection.

The credit union will then write a check to a special Treasury account for deficit reduction, available to all citizens who want to do their part in reducing the national debt, now estimated at more than $3 trillion.

Saying his congressional paycheck was his main source of income, Hunter said the halved paycheck would pose a “good challenge” in household economics, although he would not specify what sorts sacrifices he and his family would have to make.

“Let’s put it this way,” Hunter said, “I’m highly incentive-ized to get that unemployment rate down.”

Times staff writer Leonard Bernstein in San Diego contributed to this story.