Naming Overdraft Writers Stirs Concern : Ethics: House members brace for public backlash as committee prepares to release today the final list of check abusers.

WASHINGTON —  Hundreds of members of Congress are bracing for public backlash as the House Ethics Committee prepares to disclose today the names of those who wrote one or more overdrafts on their accounts at the House bank.

The list, expected to identify more than 300 current and former members, may produce some surprises, even though more than 200 incumbents already have confessed to writing some bad checks, ranging from a low of one to a high of 407.

An unofficial list of accounts--all without names--indicated that several members have written 500 or more overdrafts and that another lawmaker wrote 851 checks without sufficient funds to cover them.

The final list to be released today is expected to contain only the number of overdrafts and the number of checks returned for each member during the 39-month period that was examined. It ended last Oct. 3.

The political fear and trembling associated with the bank scandal was underscored as top House Republican leaders made a dramatic campaign fund-raising appeal to fellow GOP lawmakers on behalf of Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.), who was identified two weeks ago as one of the 22 “worst abusers” of the now-defunct bank. The ethics panel said that he wrote 389 bad checks with a combined value of $54,000 during the 39 months.

Edwards, an eight-term veteran who is No. 4 on the GOP leadership ladder as chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, has been fighting for political survival in the wake of the disclosure.

“Mickey desperately needs our help,” said the letter signed by House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), chairman of the Republican Conference. “He is now faced with the toughest election any of us will ever face, with powerful political leaders in Oklahoma announcing, one after another, their desire to challenge him for reelection.”

The letter asked the 166 Republican members of the House to send Edwards a check for $1,000 or more to supplement his campaign funds, now under $10,000.

Meantime, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee offered tips to Democrats on how to defuse the anticipated public reaction to the list.

The campaign committee circulated a statement by Rep. Matthew F. McHugh (D-N. Y.), chairman of the House Ethics Committee, which said: “The people on this list did nothing wrong. . . . There was no taxpayer money lost as a result of the overdraft practice.”

McHugh’s remarks--originally made at a news conference last week--also said that the bank was run so casually that members never got written notice of overdrafts and the posting of deposits was routinely delayed in a way that contributed to the overdraft problem.

Despite the mitigating factors, however, many House members believe that it may be too late to overcome the impact of the bank scandal on their congressional careers. Several lawmakers who have large numbers of overdrafts already have retired and others are expected to follow suit as they gauge sentiment in their districts.