Keating and other savings and loan operators took advantage of this deregulation.

"It's the kind of thing you don't sweep under the rug," said the Senator, a frequent critic of savings and loan operators.

The New England cases are unlike those in the Southwest, which often involved freewheeling savings and loan operators and high-risk investments.

Privately, some Democrats say they do not want to open the door to complaints against members of their own party who went to bat for savings and loan operators.

Sometimes it was a gang, sometimes a loan operator, but both types shared an avid interest in acquiring someone else's money.

Voters who are "trying to make a mortgage payment" don't care to hear about savings and loan operators "with eight houses," she said.

Or consider another matter: Mr. Wright's interventions on behalf of Texas savings and loan operators.

The action represents the largest sum the Office of Thrift Supervision has sought from former savings and loan operators.

They'll be together in the dock, required to explain the favors they did for Charles Keating, the once-imperious savings and loan operator.

Hillary Rodham Clinton still wonders why anyone is curious about the family's real estate partnership with a failed savings and loan operator.