House Democrats Vote to Comply With Bank Records Subpoena

Divided Democrats caught between demands to protect their privacy and public perceptions of a cover-up deserted their leadership Wednesday night and joined Republicans in voting to comply with a sweeping subpoena for the financial records of the scandal-plagued House bank.

With 186 Democrats defecting to their ranks, the Republicans pushed through a resolution authorizing immediate compliance with the subpoena by an overwhelming vote of 347 to 64. It was another in a series of rebuffs suffered by House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) since the scandal began to unfold last year.

The vote capped a day of grim and anguished party meetings in which the Democrats weighed a distasteful choice: caving in to what they saw as an attempt by the Bush Administration to embarrass the Democrat-controlled Congress in an election year or risking the possibility that their resistance would be seen by angry voters as a cover-up attempt.

Earlier in the evening, the Democrats divided almost evenly over an alternative that would have asked the courts to rule on the validity of the subpoena before complying. That resolution was defeated 284 to 131, with 123 Democrats and all 160 Republicans on the floor voting against it.

The subpoena, which Democrats had denounced as overly broad and an invasion of privacy, seeks to obtain financial records of all who used the House bank during the 39-month period in which a congressional investigation found most members had overdrawn their checking accounts.

The Democrats charged that the subpoena amounted to a “fishing expedition” into the private financial affairs of all members of Congress, regardless of whether they wrote bad checks. The subpoena was issued as part of the inquiry by retired federal judge Malcom R. Wilkey, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department to investigate possible criminal wrongdoing.

House lawyers also questioned whether compliance would set a dangerous precedent for the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. But with Republicans clamoring for compliance, lawmakers reluctantly replayed the bitter scene they acted out, with great partisan drama, last month.

Then, the Democratic leadership fought to uphold an Ethics Committee recommendation to name just those 22 lawmakers judged to have clearly abused checking privileges. But fearing cover-up allegations, the House voted unanimously to identify all 325 members who overdrew their accounts at least once in the 39-month period.

Foley lobbied throughout Wednesday to muster support for the resolution calling for a court ruling before compliance.

The anguish was apparent at a meeting of rank-and-file Democrats earlier in the day, where the scene was one of “total confusion,” according to Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.).

Some members were defiant, she said, arguing that the subpoena was politically motivated, violated members’ privacy rights and raised disturbing constitutional questions about separation of powers. But many others, she added, seemed resigned, saying, “We can’t win on this, so what’s the point?”

Most agreed with Rep. James H. Scheuer (D-N.Y.), who said the subpoena was “so broad and so unfocused . . . that it has all the smell of a crude political vendetta by the Administration against Congress in the closing months of an election year.”

But they also agreed with Rep. Dave Nagle (D-Iowa) who said that no defense of privacy or separation of powers would be understood in the public outcry over congressional perks, privileges and bounced checks. “In the current hysteria,” he said, “no sane voice can be heard.”

In the end, Ethics Committee member Fred Grandy (R-Iowa) most clearly articulated the dilemma all lawmakers faced.

“We are not in a court of law,” he said. “We are in the court of public opinion and the appeal process ended six weeks ago” when the House voted to release the names of the overdrafters. “I don’t like it and it is not fair . . . but it is not a question of being fair any more. It is a question of how best to deal with the damage that has befallen us.”