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| Democrat Scum... |
 Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:05 am |
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http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/10/08/wrangling-rangel/
Wrangling Rangel
Congress often laments that the federal government should do
more with less. Tighten its belt. Cut the fat. Eliminate
duplication.
So Wednesday, Rep. John Carter (R-TX) introduced a 2,044 word
resolution designed to remove House Ways and Means Committee
Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) from his post until the Ethics
Committee finishes probing the Harlem Democrat for a host of
alleged misdeeds. Carter punctuated the resolution with 39
paragraphs that begin with the word “whereas.” He began reading
the sonorous resolution to the House at 12:53 pm.
“Whereas these most recent revelations by Representative Rangel
have resulted in heightened national news media coverage of
alleged impropriety and potentially criminal conduct,” Carter
droned.
“Whereas at various times during the past twelve months
Representative Rangel and Speaker Pelosi have made public
statements asserting that the ongoing investigation of
Representative Rangel by the Committee on Standards of Official
Conduct would soon be concluded,” he continued.
Until 1:14 pm.
At which point, Carter finished presenting his special
resolution to the House. And now it was the turn of the House
reading clerk to read precisely what Carter read aloud, all over
again.
Until 1:25 pm.
Just in case lawmakers missed it the first time.
You know, that whole business about “not reading the bills” and
all of that.
Rangel did not flinch during this exercise. He sat in the front
row of the House chamber and stared straight ahead. Reps. Elijah
Cummings (D-MD) and Sander Levin (D-MI) flanked him.
At 1:26 pm, the House voted on whether to take a vote to refer
Carter’s resolution to the Ethics Committee. Which would
presumably do nothing with Carter’s complaint. After all, the
Ethics panel has investigated Rangel since last July. Just
before Thanksgiving last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
said the committee “assured” her that “the report will be
completed by the end of this session of Congress, which
concludes January 3, 2009.”
And after the House voted in favor of taking a vote, it voted
again. To send Carter’s request to the committee that was
already evaluating Rangel’s conduct.
The whole sortie concluded around 1:56 pm, consuming slightly
more than an hour of the House’s time.
And accomplished very little.
Certainly Republicans argue that point. The GOP has embraced
Rangel’s alleged ethics woes as a cause célèbre. They’ve tried
to morph Rangel into an icon of Democratic inconsistency. After
all, Pelosi and the Democrats seized control of the House on the
heels of sullied Republican figures like former Majority Leader
Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Reps. Bob Ney (R-OH) and Duke Cunningham (R-
CA). Ney served time and is now free. Cunningham remains in
jail. Pelosi pledged to “drain the swamp” under her watch.
Meantime, the Ethics Committee is studying whether Rangel failed
to report as much as $600,000 in income on his financial
disclosure forms; whether he may have improperly used
Congressional letterhead to ask for donations to a public
affairs school that bears his name at City of College of New
York; and whether he failed to pay taxes on a villa in the
Dominican Republic.
Rangel has now made good on the unpaid taxes. But Republicans
found it ironic that the chairman of the House’s tax-writing
panel had tax trouble.
John Carter says it would “at least make more sense” if Rangel
suffered tax issues and chaired a different committee besides
the one that governs U.S. tax policy.
This is the third time in 13 months that Republicans have tried
to sanction Rangel. The GOP efforts have enjoyed little success
on the floor. But their efforts commanded headlines and filled
media airwaves for months. The buzz has forced Rangel into a
particularly vexing spot as Congress wrestles with health care
reform. After all, Rangel’s Ways and Means panel is one of the
committees charged with crafting the health care reform
legislation.
A Rangel spokesman focused on this dynamic amid the health care
negotiations.
“Let’s look at this resolution for what it really is,” said the
spokesman who didn’t want to be identified. “(It’s) a highly-
partisan effort designed to undermine the important work in
Congress on health care reform.”
The GOP’s attempt to strip Rangel of his gavel, at least
temporarily, triggered a few moments of consternation on the
House floor.
Carter’s labored reading of his resolution seemed to exasperate
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY). Ackerman interrupted Carter with a
question to Speaker Pro Tempore Tim Holden (D-PA).
“Can any member of this body claim the privilege of the House
for an hour, based on something they read in the newspaper, at
any time they want?” Ackerman asked.
And then there was confusion over the votes.
The first vote tied to Carter’s resolution was on “Ordering the
Previous Question On the Motion to Refer.” In Congressional
parlance, this is a procedural maneuver, often called the “PQ.”
Despite its abbreviation, the PQ has nothing to do with the
separatist “Parti Quebecois” in Canada. The PQ is simply a vote
to tee-up the next vote. But most news organizations mistakenly
reported the PQ vote as the actual vote to dispatch Carter’s
resolution to the Ethics Committee. And even so, there was a
slight difference in the total of the procedural vote (246 to
153 with 19 members voting present) than on the actual vote to
direct Carter’s resolution to committee (243-156 with 19 members
voting present).
After the votes, Rangel huddled for more than an hour with Ways
and Means Committee Democrats in his hovel not far from the
House floor. A phalanx of reporters teamed in the hallway in
hope of chatting with Rangel after the meeting broke. House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi dropped by the chairman’s conclave. Then
came an entreaty by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus
(D-MT).
Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) is the lawmaker the Democratic
leadership team asked to refer John Carter’s resolution to the
Ethics Committee. Reporters descended on Crowley when he emerged
from the meeting.
“I believe the resolution was steered properly (to the Ethics
Committee)” Crowley said.
The scribes continued to pepper Crowley about Rangel. Finally,
Martin Vaughan of Dow Jones Newswires piped up.
“On excise taxes…” Vaughan began.
“Wait. You don’t want to talk about Charlie Rangel?” Crowley
inquired of Vaughan. “I love you, man!”
Crowley, who stands well over six feet, proceeded to give the
6’5” Vaughan a hug.
Everyone laughed.
As the afternoon crawled along, the other lawmakers drifted out.
Pelosi walked back to her office. Baucus retreated to his
hideaway office in the Senate. Finally Rangel materialized. The
reporters badgered him with questions about health care and the
economy as he walked past the House chamber and into Statuary
Hall.
Rangel told the assemblage he planned to submit the House
Democrats’ health care bill to the Congressional Budget Office
for analysis on Friday. The chairman then ducked into the
Speaker’s office.
The reporters started to leave. But then Rangel spun around and
returned for just a moment.
“And thanks to all of you for not asking about the other thing,”
he said, referring to Carter’s resolution.
“Well, tell us about the ‘other thing?’” I queried.
And with that, Rangel fell silent and disappeared back into the
Speaker’s Office.
- Chad Pergram covers Congress for FOX News. He’s earned an
Edward R. Murrow Award and the Joan Barone Award for his
reporting on Capitol Hill.
- The Speaker’s Lobby refers to a long, ornate corridor that
runs behind the dais of the House chamber. Lawmakers, aides and
journalists often confer there during votes. |
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