OVERDRAFT - THE POLITICAL COST OF CONGRESSIONAL MALFEASANCE

This research focuses on the aggregate effects of the House Banking Scandal on the 1992 elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. While many commentators felt the scandal would transform the House of Representatives through massive displacement of members, we argue that the literature on scandals in Congress should have made us more cautious in our prognostications. We focus on three different stages of reelection for incumbents and conclude that the House Banking Scandal had only a nominal effect on those who wrote bad checks.