Figure in house check-writing scandal

Bob Davis, 77, a Michigan Republican who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 1993 and was entangled in a scandal involving overdrawn checks covered by the U.S. House bank, died Oct. 16 at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County of kidney failure and a heart ailment.

Mr. Davis, a former mortician and state legislator, represented a sprawling House district that included the Upper Peninsula and northern part of the Lower Peninsula.

He served on the Armed Services Committee and the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. His district touches on the three largest Great Lakes. In his last act in Congress, he helped create the Keweenaw National Historical Park.

Toward the end of his terms in office, Mr. Davis was revealed to have been one of the worst offenders of overdrafts from the House bank. He wrote more than 800 checks drawn from the House bank with insufficient funds during a 39-month period that ended in October 1991, the Associated Press reported.

In 1993, the Justice Department cleared Mr. Davis of criminal wrongdoing. But the check-writing scandal, combined with earlier financial problems and a messy divorce led to Mr. Davis's resignation from office, according to the AP. He was one of dozens of congressmen to leave office because of the check-writing scandal.

"No taxpayer's money was ever on the line," Mr. Davis told a reporter at the time. "When I overdrew I was covered by other congressmen's money, not public money. No laws or rules were broken because it really wasn't a bank but a cooperative check-cashing fund."

Robert William Davis was born in Marquette and raised in St. Ignace, Mich. He was a 1954 graduate of Wayne State University's mortuary science school in Detroit.

He owned and operated a funeral home with his father in St. Ignace before entering politics. He was Republican leader of the Michigan senate from 1974 to 1978.

After leaving the U.S. House, Mr. Davis owned and operated a lobbying firm while also working on projects for K&L Gates, an international law firm. He was a resident of the Alexandria section of Fairfax County.

His marriages to Marjorie McNeely Davis and Martha Cole Davis ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 17 years, Brook Ball Davis of the Alexandria section of Fairfax; three children from his first marriage, Rob Davis of Northbrook, Ill., Lisa Shankle of Norcross, Ga., and George Davis of DeWitt, Mich.; a daughter from his second marriage, Alexandra Thomas of Los Angeles; and a daughter from his third marriage, Hannah Davis of the Alexandria section of Fairfax; and two grandchildren.

-- From staff and wire reports