Climaxing months of political maneuvering and high anxiety in the halls of Congress, the House ethics committee today released the names of 247 current and 56 former members of Congress who overdrew their checking accounts at least once at the House bank.
Coming two weeks after the committee listed 22 members as having abused their accounts by writing frequent large overdrafts, the new list brings to 325 the number of present and former members involved in the affair.
It will also bring the long and contentious matter to a close, said Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington.
Most members braced for political rather than legal problems, because at this point no laws are known to have been broken. But the free overdraft protection enjoyed by members with House bank accounts has crystallized a perception that representatives are pampered by perquisites out of the reach of the average citizen.
Although dozens of members had already released their bank records in order to defuse criticism, for several of the most prominent members of the House the list released today, covering 39 months ending late last year, was the first disclosure that they had written scores of overdrafts.
Like many members, Mr. Rangel reacted angrily, pointing out that the bank had kept sloppy records and saying that he had never received notice that his account was in arrears.
The list released today does not show the dollar amount of the overdrafts, so in most cases it is impossible to know whether the members on it wrote checks for a few dollars more than their balance or for thousands of dollars more.
The ethics committee, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, issued a statement saying that none of the members on the list broke House bank rules. But the fact is that the rules were vague, and members say it was the longstanding policy that overdrafts were acceptable as long as they did not exceed their next month's salary.
The list does not indicate which members violated that policy. But the General Accounting Office, the Congressional auditing arm that first disclosed the overdrafts, reported that more than 60 had overdrawn accounts for more than a month's salary at least once. On April 1 the ethics committee named 22 of those who had been overdrawn to that extent in at least eight of the 39 months covered by the inquiry. The 40 others were not singled out in the list released today.
Thirty-six members and former members were found to have overdrawn their accounts more than 100 times in the period that was audited by the General Accounting Office in one of its regular reviews.
"To be included on such a list is embarrassing, and I apologize to my constituents," said Mr. Stokes, who recused himself as chairman of the ethics committee during the investigation of the bank and is now not expected to return to the panel.
Mr. Dellums's statement typified the anger expressed by many members who insist that since no House rules were broken, they were innocent of any wrongdoing. "I continue to believe that this is an unwarranted intrusion into our private family life, an intrusion that any private citizen would not tolerate," he said.
Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, who will seek to redeem himself by sending $160 to a California food bank for the homeless, as a penalty for his 99 overdrafts, said: "I completely understand that many people feel penalties should have been charged. There is no way to send this money to the House bank, because it has been closed; and there is no reason to send it to the Treasury, since no public funds were involved."
He said the $160 was double the interest penalty the House credit union would have charged him.
The list of the names and the number of overdrafts they wrote did not specify to what purpose individual members overdrew their accounts or how they came up with the money to make good on the debits.
Investigations of such information by the Congress or the Justice Department could eventually lead to charges that some members violated the tax code or Congressional ethics standards by not reporting what were interest-free loans, in effect, on tax or ethics forms. Republican critics have said such a loan should have been declared as income, but that question is being studied by the Justice Department.
Democratic and Republican leaders attempted to put the best face on the scandal, which has already led to the defeat of a few members in primary elections and forced other prominent members to drop out of their re-election races.
The Republican whip who was one of the chief instigators of the disclosures, Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, pre-empted the ethics committee disclosures by releasing a statement earlier in the day explaining his 22 overdrafts, including a $9,463 check to the Internal Revenue Service in 1990.
"I regret the errors with my checking account and apologize for them," Mr. Gingrich said. "But one thing I do not apologize for is leading the fight for disclosure of all the names. Last year and last month the Democratic leadership tried to suppress the facts. I fought for disclosure even though I knew I would be opening myself to public embarrassment."
Mr. Gingrich released a letter from his accountant that said that none of the overdrafts were "associated with personal investments or with campaign funding."
Mr. Foley, who had already disclosed that he had two overdrafts, has been put on the defensive by Democrats who said he reacted slowly to the scandal. At a news conference today he was combative, accusing the news media of misreporting the House bank story and blowing it out of proportion.
"No taxpayer money was involved," Mr. Foley said, "There were no bounced checks or kited checks. No one lost any money of any kind."
Mr. Foley closed the bank in the wake of the scandal.
Many Republican strategists at first saw the current affair as an opportunity to retake the House by placing blame for the scandal on the Democrats, who have controlled the House since the 1950's. A large majority of the largest overdrafts listed have been by Democrats. But a number of prominent Republicans, including Representative Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma, have also been badly hurt.
Earlier this week, Representative Bill Lowery, Republican of California, withdrew from a divisive primary race after disclosing that he had 300 overdrafts totalling $104,000.
The data released today were compiled by the accounting office from records supplied by the sergeant-at-arms. A statement signed by the acting chairman of the ethics committee, Representative Matthew F. McHugh, Democrat of upstate New York, that accompanied the new list noted that many of the overdrafts were the fault of the bank because it did not always credit deposits in a timely fashion.
The scandal combined with redistricting, frustration with legislative gridlock and the opportunity for some members to keep their unspent campaign funds for personal use, have sparked a rash of voluntary retirements. The anti-incumbency rage has contributed to the defeat of five members in primaries, including Representative Charles A. Hayes, Democrat of Illinois, who was found by the committee to be one of the most egregious overdrafters.
Representative Robert J. Mrazeck of Long Island was forced to drop out of the New York Democratic senatorial primary when he was included on the list of the 22 worst overdrafters.
The scandal has heavily burdened the Senate campaigns of Representatives Les AuCoin, Democrat of Oregon, who overdrew his account 83 times, and Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who overdrew hers 143 times.
Because of an editing error, two front-page articles yesterday about the House banking scandal misstated the numbers of former and current House members on lists of those who wrote overdrafts. An initial list, issued on April 1, included 5 former and 17 current members. The list issued on Thursday included 51 former and 252 current members, not 56 former and 247 current members.