Keating Five - Aftermath

Aftermath

Keating and Lincoln Savings became convenient symbols for arguments about what had gone wrong in America's financial system and society, and were featured in popular culture references. The senators did not escape infamy either. By spring 1992, a deck of playing cards was being marketed, called "The Savings and Loan Scandal", that featured on their face Charles Keating holding up his hand, with images of the five senators portrayed as puppets on his fingers. Polls showed that most Americans believed the actions of the Keating Five were typical of Congress as a whole. Political historian Lewis Gould would later echo this sentiment, as well as Cranston attorney Dershowitz's argument, writing that, “the real problem for the 'Keating Three' who were most involved was that they had been caught.”

McCain testified against Keating in a civil suit brought by Lincoln bondholders, and was seen as the plaintiffs' best witness. The other four senators refused to testify. Cranston left office in January 1993, and died in December 2000. DeConcini and Riegle continued to serve in the Senate until their terms expired, but they did not seek re-election in 1994. DeConcini was appointed by President Bill Clinton in February 1995 to the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Glenn did choose to run for re-election in 1992, trying to become the first senator ever to win a fourth term from Ohio. The Republican candidate, Lieutenant Governor R. Michael DeWine, attacked Glenn on Keating Five as well as a number of other matters, in one of the dirtiest campaigns in the country that year and the toughest of Glenn's senatorial contests. Glenn prevailed, however, defeating DeWine by nine percentage points to gain one more term in the Senate before retiring and not running for re-election in 1998.

After 1999, the only member of the Keating Five remaining in the U.S. Senate was John McCain, who had an easier time gaining re-election in 1992 than he anticipated. He survived the political scandal in part by becoming friendly with the political press. McCain subsequently ran for president in 2000 and became the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. During the 2000s, several retrospective accounts of the controversy reiterated the contention that McCain was included in the investigation primarily so that there would be at least one Republican target. Glenn's inclusion in the investigation has been attributed to Republicans who were angered by the inclusion of McCain, as well as committee members who thought that dropping Glenn (and McCain) would make it look bad for the remaining three Democratic Senators.

The scandal was followed by a number of attempts to adopt campaign finance reform—spearheaded by U.S. Sen. David Boren (D-OK)—but most attempts died in committee. A weakened reform was passed in 1993. Substantial campaign finance reform was not passed until the adoption of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. Bennett would later write that the Keating Five investigation did make a difference, as members of Congress were afterward far less likely to intercede with federal investigations on behalf of contributors.

In early October 2008, the Keating Five scandal, its possible parallel to the subprime mortgage crisis and liquidity crisis of September 2008, and specifically the role in the scandal of Republican presidential nominee McCain, were briefly emphasized by the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, through a 13-minute "documentary" entitled Keating Economics. This introduction occurred after the McCain campaign began emphasizing the Obama–Ayers controversy. The Keating Five matter otherwise had little impact on McCain's eventually unsuccessful campaign.