WASHINGTON — After casting one of the most controversial votes in their tenure on the $700 billion mortgage-backed securities rescue plan, members of Congress returned home this past week and faced constituents divided over the package and anxious about the economy.

“I’ve been yelled at. I’ve been cursed at,” said Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., who originally voted against the bailout before switching his vote and helping it pass.

Rep. Wamp, like many of his colleagues in Congress, has taken to the civic club circuit and appeared on talk radio shows to discuss the bill. Voters, he said, are singularly focused on the fragile U.S. economy.

“The fundamentals are still very bad,” he said. “I’m talking to people about what we’ve learned and what our options boiled down to but also laying out why it’s important for us to be switching gears from surviving to thriving. We need to go on the offensive again with our economy.”

Many lawmakers facing re-election battles in November, which include all House members and one-third of the Senate, have seen their opponents — across the political spectrum — seize on the bailout vote.

All four senators from Tennessee and Georgia voted for the bill. Among Chattanooga-area House members besides Rep. Wamp, Reps. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn.; John Duncan, R-Tenn.; Nathan Deal, R-Ga.; and Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., voted against it.

The bill allows the federal government to purchase up to $700 trillion in toxic debt as a lifeline to tottering financial firms.

Democratic opponents of Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., are saying the senators supported the lack of regulatory oversight that led to the credit crisis.

“We have had enough of ‘giveaway Lamar!’” wrote Bob Tuke, Sen. Alexander’s Democratic opponent, in a campaign dispatch.

Sen. Alexander acknowledged that many Tennesseans remain angry about the bailout package. However, he said he’s explaining to voters that the government purchase of the mortgage debt is an investment that could return a profit for taxpayers and be used to pay down the federal debt.

“I’m finding more people are understanding we’re not giving $700 billion away,” Sen. Alexander said.

Sen. Chambliss noted that while his Democratic opponent, Jim Martin, is criticizing him for his vote, a House race in Southern Georgia features a Republican candidate attacking the Democratic incumbent for the same “yes” vote.

“It cuts both ways for these challengers,” Sen. Chambliss said. “My opponent has criticized me for it, but he has no plan himself other than to give the money away instead of investing it.”

Rep. Davis, the lone Democrat in the Tennessee delegation who voted against the bill, said his constituents largely agree with his opposition to taxpayers having to take on the liability of these faulty loans.

“They resent the fact it is falling on their backs,” he said.

For those not up for re-election, such as Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the week has been no less sobering, with the stock market in seeming freefall and gloomy economic news dominating headlines.

“People are calling our offices in tears, especially some of our citizens who had planned for retirement,” Sen. Corker said. “Their whole world has turned upside down. My fear is that it’ll be more of that occurring. The lack of credit that exists has got to play out in higher unemployment.”

Sen. Corker, one of the key negotiators of the bailout package, said he’s found audiences increasingly accepting of it.

“There may still be people who disagree, but it’s like a light bulb goes off when we walk through the situation we were in and why the action was taken,” he said.

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