THE SAGA OF JAY KIM: WHEN YOUR WIFE TURNS ON YOU, WATCH OUT

Edited by Douglas Harbrecht

If history is any judge, Representative Jay Kim (R-Calif.) is in a heap of trouble.

The second-term lawmaker from suburban Los Angeles is enmeshed in scandal. Kim, a former engineering company president, and his wife, June, pleaded guilty last year to accepting illegal campaign contributions. They were placed on probation and fined $10,000. The House ethics committee recently expanded its probe of the embattled businessman-turned-politician.

To make matters worse, Kim's former friends want him out of office. After a defiant Kim ignored pleas from local Republican leaders to retire at the end of this year, he drew a big field of challengers in the June 2 GOP primary. Complicating matters, the judge who sentenced Kim forbade the congressman from returning home to campaign.

But now comes the deepest cut: His wife has come out against him. June Kim has called on her husband to resign from office. She told the Orange County Register that she's cooperating with House ethics probers.

In recent decades, the combination of angry wives and political scandal has proved politically fatal to lawmakers. Among the victims: Senator Edward Brooke (R-Mass.) and Senator Herman Talmadge (D-Ga.), who both were denounced by their spouses in the midst of election-year scandals. Both were defeated -- Brooke by Democrat Paul Tsongas in 1978 and Talmadge by Republican Mack Mattingly in 1980.

The only modern example of a lawmaker who survived a public marital spat was Representative Bob Carr (D-Mich.), whose wife accused him of giving her a sexually transmitted disease. Carr managed to win reelection and served several more terms before losing a Senate race in 1994. But unlike Kim, Carr was not enmeshed in an ethics scandal at the time of his domestic flare-up.

Political analysts say Kim still may be able to survive his primary showdown, because two strong opponents are splitting the anti-incumbent vote. But even if he wins in June, the congressman is given little chance of beating a Democrat in November, despite the fact that the district leans toward the GOP. Republican strategists, who are beginning to worry about the party's tenuous 11-seat cushion in the House, are hoping that Kim is sent packing by voters -- and his wife -- sooner rather than later.

By Richard S. Dunham in Washington