[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 143 (Wednesday, September 10, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H7984-H7987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     QUESTION OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE

  Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of personal privilege 
under rule IX.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair has been made aware of a valid 
basis for the gentleman's point of personal privilege.
  The gentleman from New York is recognized for 1 hour.
  (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. RANGEL. Not to worry, my friend and colleagues. I have no 
intentions of keeping you for 1 hour, especially at this time of the 
day. But a couple of weeks ago the leadership of the minority had asked 
that I be thrown out of the House and censured based on a newspaper 
story, and I just want to thank those people who were thoughtful enough 
to think that even Members of Congress at some times should not rely on 
newspaper stories, but rather the Ethics Committee, which is 
bipartisan. More recently, however, my dear friend John Boehner has 
asked the Speaker to ask me to step aside as the chairman of the Ways 
and Means Committee.
  Now I say ``my dear friend John Boehner,'' not as this word is tossed 
around in the House and Senate casually. I say it because John Boehner 
has, for many, many years, been my friend. We have worked so closely 
together in bipartisan areas that just a couple of weeks ago he allowed 
me to strengthen my relationship with Jim McCrery on the Ways and Means 
Committee to get unemployment compensation passed, and lauded our 
efforts, as I lauded his.
  I look around and I see George Miller, who more than once said what a 
straight shooter he has been on Education. Steny Hoyer has reminded me

[[Page H7985]]

that, you know, he may disagree with John Boehner, but one thing is 
clear, that when you speak to him, that he says what he means and he 
means what he says.
  Well, I don't really think he means that I am incompetent and should 
step down. I don't think he really means or thinks that the Speaker is 
going to remove me from the House of Representatives. I don't think 
that he thinks I am a threat to this honorable House, which I am so 
proud to be a Member of. And for those people who say hey, let the 
Ethics Committee make the decision, I thank you for myself, for my 
name, for my friends and for my supporters.
  But believe it or not, I want to do this for the House of 
Representatives. I don't want any Member, Republican or Democrat, that 
is less politically secure than me to go through what I have had to go 
through for the last several weeks, because for them they never could 
survive. They would lose the election. And it won't be of anything that 
the voters knew. It would be what this Congress has done to each other.
  You know, the Ways and Means Committee, we made a special effort to 
be civil, even when we disagreed. We are so proud, with the support of 
Speaker Pelosi, of Steny Hoyer, and, yes, John Boehner, working with us 
and trying to see what we can get done.
  At the end of this election, this Congress is going to have serious 
things to take care of. And we won't have Democratic solutions to taxes 
and health and Social Security and the variety of things with peace and 
war. We are going to have to resolve these issues as a United States 
Congress in a bipartisan way. There is not going to be any Democratic 
way to do it.
  And we are going to have to work together, not because we like each 
other, but we have a special responsibility to the people of the United 
States to make certain that our reputations may be low in terms of 
production, but if someone doesn't get health care, doesn't get that 
Social Security check, or for any reason finds himself without a house, 
they are not going to say the Democrats did it or the Republicans did 
it. They are going to say that this Congress let them down. It is going 
to be difficult, no matter who is the President or who is in the 
leadership.
  But it does not help to polarize this body and take wild shots at 
each other, whether they are chairmen or whether they are freshmen, 
knowing that at the end of the day you are not going to accomplish 
anything substantive, but you are going to make it more difficult for 
us to get a law.
  Do I say that John Boehner knows this? I tell you this: To show you 
the depth of my friendship, I am embarrassed that he feels he has to do 
this. There is no way in the world, based on his knowledge of my love 
for this House, that he would believe that I would do anything to 
dishonor it. And there is no question in my mind that at the end of the 
day, when the dust settles, that this issue is going to be moot. But I 
just don't know what the relationship between people is going to be. So 
I don't know the next move, but I would suggest that this is not the 
way to go.
  John Boehner, John Boehner, John Boehner. On the Tim Russert show, 
what they did to my friend there in saying that he was passing out 
illegal checks on the floor. A mistake? We all make them, and we all 
have to say we are sorry. But we all don't have to attack each other, 
because at the end of the day, that is all we may have to do to each 
other and get nothing done.
  I am suggesting to you this: Mistakes may have been made by me, and I 
briefly want to let you know the issues that are before the Ethics 
Committee as relates to three subjects. And I will be brief.
  Some 20 years ago, I was in the Dominican Republic. I got a call from 
a long and dear friend of mine to visit this place called Punta Cana, 
Dominican Republic, where he had some dream of making this a resort. I 
didn't want to go. My wife said friendship dictated it.

  I got there and he was telling me about the dream. And I was 
impressed with his dream, but I said, what the heck has that got to do 
with me?
  Well, he says, they want to start, they want to build some beach 
houses here, and there is the sand and there is the beach, and I think 
it's a good deal.
  I said, it may be a good deal for you, but I really don't need a 
beach house and I can't afford it. And, besides, there is no house 
here.
  He says, no, we haven't built them yet.
  So I said, look, Ted, I don't have the time.
  By the time they showed me the renderings, and they told me that it 
would cost $82,000, I said I wish I had the $82,000. Good-bye.
  He says, no, if you have got $28,000, then all they have to do is 
take the rentals from it and reduce the mortgages, and you can only use 
it for 9 months, but ultimately it would be yours.
  I said, we can talk.
  I refinanced my house. We had no savings, no nothing, and, quite 
frankly, I relied on the reputation, as I did then and will now, of a 
guy whose reputation is untouched.
  Gradually the mortgage was coming down. I had received no financial 
statement. I could not break the culture in terms of Dominican and 
Spanish. I received no money, no check. Never did. But let's face it, I 
should have known. And after this hit the fan, I had my lawyer to go. 
He broke the balance and found out the fact that they didn't give out 
statements. Some years there was no statement. There was a half a dozen 
statements that we have accumulated. And then we took the balance, 
added to the mortgage of about $50,000, another $20,000 for another 
room.
  All of the reports would indicate that Rangel had a cash cow. Rangel 
got some money. No. What happened was anybody who had a villa, whatever 
money they got, the hotel first would take their cut. Then they would 
take out taxes, they would take out renovations, they would take out 
hurricane expenses, they would take out interest, they would take out 
everything. At the end of the thing, whether your place was used or not 
used, they would equally distribute the money. Some years it was 
$5,000. Some years it was nothing.
  How many times did I use it in the nine weeks? I wish I had used it 
for nine weeks. I never spent nine days down there. I have never spent 
more than four days in any one year, and in several years I never was 
able to get there at all.
  What has this got to do with the charges and the allegations? The 
charges and the allegation is how did he get rid of the mortgage? And 
the mortgage is that if I had done what I was supposed to have done, I 
would have found some way to find our how the allocation was there. 
Because legally and theoretically, the reduction of the mortgage meant 
income was coming somewhere, even if I didn't receive it.

                              {time}  1900

  And I should have found that out because, at the end of the day, my 
accountant tells me after 20 years of research there would be no tax 
liability because of the deduction of the foreign tax, which was 
higher, because I was an American and because of depreciation. They 
changed it and said that because I sold the house that I was raised in 
that it did not allow me to take full credit that I could have done for 
that year. It means, at the end of the day, my accountant believes that 
I would be liable for $5,000. Do I take that lightly? No.
  As a Member of Congress, as a public servant, I should have a higher 
standard than most people. Whether I owed $5,000 or $5 million, it was 
wrong, but it certainly doesn't mean that I should be kicked out of the 
House and say that I caused disservice to this august body. I just hope 
none of you have ever made mistakes on your income taxes, because what 
I have done is I've gone back 20 years and I've waived all statutes, 
and I'm prepared to pay whatever price there is, and I hope that at the 
end of the day that will take care of that. That's the roughest one.
  The second thing is that one would have you to believe that I 
received some type of a gift in housing, because the headline is that 
Rangel had four subsidized apartments in New York. The fact that there 
is no law in having four subsidized apartments in New York, of course, 
is no account to anybody. I don't have four apartments.
  Briefly, what happened is that, 20 years ago, the kids were grown. We 
got tired of paying the bills on our house and getting into oil and 
doing all those

[[Page H7986]]

things. My wife said let's move to an apartment. I'd spent all of my 
life on 32nd Street and Lenox Avenue. She finds a place on 35th and 
Lenox Avenue. I refused to leave Harlem then as I do now, and there was 
a place called Lenox Terrace, where we now live, that had so many 
vacancies.
  At that time 20 years ago, there weren't a whole lot of people who 
could afford not to live in Harlem, who were rushing to get into 
Harlem. Crime was really high. There were a lot of vacancies there, but 
they did have a doorman, and I felt since I was away from home so much 
that it might provide some security to my wife. In that house, people 
knowing that Alma would want to leave, there was a popular reverend, a 
pastor, and he, too, was leaving Harlem and was leaving an apartment 
that he had. I did not know and did not care that the apartment that he 
managed to get for us actually had been two apartments. He had it as 
one apartment. I got a lease for one apartment. I paid rent for one 
apartment. There's no way in the world I can imagine what it looked 
like when it was two apartments, and I don't care what the architect 
says. Under the law, that is one apartment.
  Ten years after I was in the apartment, my wife was notified by the 
landlord--incidentally, he was the one who was supposed to give me the 
gift. I wouldn't know what he looks like. I've never met him in my life 
or his agent, but he was saying that there was a studio apartment next 
to mine, and did I have any interest in it. They were really pushing 
apartments then. My wife says she didn't see any need for it.
  I said, ``Well, let's talk about this, Alma. You don't want my 
political friends to come here and talk in the living room. You get so 
tired of me doing my work, you know, while you're doing something else. 
You don't want any smoke in here. I can't have a card game here. Let's 
take a look at this one room apartment.''
  I took it, and I can tell you that it saved my marriage. There's not 
a day when I'm home that I don't spend some time just sitting there. 
Sometimes it's reading. Sometimes it's studying. Sometimes the gang 
comes. Sometimes we raise a lot of devil. I pay the maximum rent for 
what cannot be described physically as any more than two apartments, 
but we can get two--the so-called fourth and third apartments.
  It's hard for me to admit to those of you who have a lot of political 
problems that, for most all of my political life in Congress, I've 
never picked up the phone to ask anybody to give me any money because 
I'd never really had any problems. I did have a guy in Washington that 
would give a fund-raiser--one in Washington and one in New York--but 
it's kind of hard, when you're not challenged, to ask for money, but I 
guess it was my personality or my seniority on the Ways and Means 
Committee, one or the other. Somehow funds were coming in, so I hired 
somebody. We worked down at the political club. The money was coming 
in. He said he needed a little help. He thought that I should open up a 
headquarters. Well, I don't agree in spending a lot of money, but he 
said he'd heard that the Lenox Terrace, where I lived, had people 
living in apartments that were converted but that were not commercial 
for running McDonald's and other business.
  I said, ``Do what you want. We can afford to do it.''
  They got this apartment. A staff of two became a staff of three, four 
and five, and I guess the Republican campaign committee can tell you 
how successful I've been.
  It reached the point where they said, ``Look, Congressman. We've got 
too many people. There's no air conditioning here. We need more space. 
Things are going well. You're sending out a lot of checks. We will not 
renew the lease.'' This is before what happened in the paper.
  I said, ``Do what you have to do.''
  They spoke with the landlord and negotiated: an apartment with him 
for a larger staff, office accommodations in a place that was double 
the rent, much larger, right there in the Lenox Terrace, which means 
that everyone knew what they were doing and what other people were 
doing. We decided it would be best just to leave the Lenox Terrace in 
lieu of what happened because it was just too awkward.
  That ends, once and for all, the whole idea of a gift. I paid the 
maximum rent. If I'd decided that because I wanted to please somebody 
that I should look for a marketplace rent, I would not know where to 
go, but I sure am not going to give the landlord what I think is a 
higher rent because I want to please somebody as to what is market 
rent, but if I'd left the apartment because of some foolish, stupid 
reason, the landlord would've come in, slapped some paint on it and 
doubled the rent. So, therefore, it would not be of any assistance to 
somebody of a lesser income.
  Whatever doubts you may have, which I don't see how--I told somebody 
show me the gift, and I'll walk away. Leave it to the bipartisan Ethics 
Committee to decide. It's not only the right and fair thing do. It's 
the only thing to do.
  The last point gives me a little more difficulty. They are saying 
that I may have used my stationery to solicit funds for the City 
College of New York for an institution that the board of trustees has 
named the Charles Rangel Public School for Public Service.
  I have to let you know that, on November 30, 1950, I was shot and 
left for dead in Korea, and I came home in '52. I had more medals, more 
self-esteem than any guy 22 years old should have. The only time it was 
shattered is when I went for a job and found out that nobody wanted 
heroes, that nobody wanted infantry men and that nobody wanted the 
expertise that I enjoyed in directing fire on the enemy to 18 155-
millimeter Howitzers at 75 shell bombs on the enemy. So, it was clear 
that I not only was unemployed but that I was unemployable. It was 
clear in one day when I had my truck full of stuff on the street in the 
Garment Center that I joined the Army to avoid. The rain came; the 
boxes were scattered all over, and the policeman was cursing me out for 
blocking traffic. Sergeant Rangel was being cursed out on a public 
street.

  I dropped everything. I went to the VA, and I said, ``I need some 
help.'' They told me that because I had to go back to high school that 
I couldn't go to college. I raised so much hell. Finally, because of 
the GI Bill--I was a high school dropout--I got the training to become 
a Member of Congress, a member of the Ways and Means Committee and 
become its chairman.
  Am I overzealous about education? You bet your life. Do I go 
everywhere and tell businesspeople that you owe it to this country to 
assist us in making certain that Americans can produce, that we 
shouldn't be embarrassed of having to import people here who have 
knowledge in science and all of that? I want America to be as strong as 
it can be, and I'm going to do everything legally, morally and 
ethically possible to make certain that we support our young people and 
expose them to education.
  This CCNY, this City College of New York, has excelled. Colin Powell 
and so many people had dreams and have succeeded. All I was saying is 
that we have thousands of Barack Obamas in the Black community. We have 
so few who are willing to get involved in public service. They go to 
Wall Street. They make their money and they're bright. What I want to 
do is to encourage minorities and be able to say, ``Hey, you don't have 
to run for public office, but please understand the importance of 
public service.'' They said, ``There should be a school for you to do 
that.'' I said, ``Well, let's get a school. Let's do it.'' They said, 
``Let's do it.''
  Two, three days ago, I heard Secretary Rice talking to some group, 
and she was saying that she goes to so many countries and that she 
doesn't see people in the Foreign Service who look like her. Those who 
look like the gorgeous mosaic of America is not abroad. But she said, 
``Thanks to Congressman Rangel, we have worked out a program where we 
go to the historically Black colleges where we train these people 
there. When they graduate, they not only have degrees, but they are 
members of the Foreign Service, and they learn to understand the great 
contribution they can make to this country.'' That was what I wanted to 
do.
  I made certain that, in this letter, I did not ask for any public 
funds or for any kind of funds at all, but they said, because they knew 
that the reason I wanted these not-for-profit people,

[[Page H7987]]

these private people, to take a look and see whether they could support 
this not-for-profit public college, there may have been some stretch in 
the line because it was on stationery. Had I not had the seal that had 
the Capitol, it would have been all right.
  I'm glad this happened because I'm going to find some way to do what 
I do, and I'm going to do it the way the Ethics Committee says to do 
it, but I hope I can get some of you to encourage the private sector to 
do what our government is not doing. Education is too important to 
leave to the local and State schools. Corporations have an obligations 
to help us to educate our people. Condoleezza Rice said it, and I truly 
know that you believe a failure to educate our young people is a threat 
to our national security. If for whatever reason the Federal Government 
is not doing it, everyone ought to do their bit. So, whatever the 
Ethics Committee says to do, we have to do.
  Finally, I've changed my mind in bringing to your attention how they 
beat up on Mr. Boehner on the Tim Russert show: where he's been, how he 
got there and what he violated. At the end of the day, I think I'm 
trying to make certain that my presentation ends up on as positive a 
note as I can because of my longtime respect for my friend. Mr. Boehner 
said it was a big mistake and I regret it. I shouldn't have done it. It 
was an old practice in the House that had gone on for a long time. 
Well, I think he knows what I'm talking about.
  If you made a mistake, I may have made a mistake.
  I'll tell you one thing. The judgment of our mistakes should not be 
to attack each other. It should not be to defame us in front of our 
family and friends. Whatever difference that we had with each other, 
that's why we have the Ethics Committee. So, at the end of the day, 
that's how it's going to be resolved. We don't have that many issues 
that we've got to work with, perhaps, in a bipartisan way. Whatever we 
have to do because of the election we have to do, and I don't expect 
this short talk is going to change anything, but I do hope there is one 
thing that we keep in mind: that for those of us who are going to be 
here next year with a new administration, the last thing we have to do 
is to threaten each other politically and destroy the friendships and 
the camaraderie that we have worked so hard to try to restore.
  I conclude by letting you know that some of you old-timers may know a 
guy named Guy Vander Jagt. Guy Vander Jagt was chairperson of the 
Republican Campaign Committee. Could he speak? Could he raise money? 
Was he partisan? Guy Vander Jagt was my friend. Guy Vander Jagt would 
come to my fund-raisers. I would stop over to his. His wife and my wife 
are the best of friends. Even though Guy Vander Jagt is gone, they 
asked me to speak in the Congress to say how he was loved by both 
sides. Was he a good Republican? Was he fierce? Was he eloquent? Was he 
liked? Yes.
  I don't think I'll live long enough to see the days when we'll have 
that type of relationship. The little we do have let's not destroy. We 
have a big responsibility to our Nation and to this Congress. I know in 
my heart that my friend John Boehner does not mean truly what he has 
said, and whoever has put him in the position where he felt that he had 
to say it, hey, it's campaign time. I understand it. It has to stop 
somewhere before we leave here. I hope it can stop now.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. BOEHNER. Madam Speaker, I demand a point of personal privilege 
under the rules.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair has not been made aware of the 
basis for the point of personal privilege. Does the gentleman seek 
recognition under unanimous consent?
  Mr. BOEHNER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order for 1 minute.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection?
  There was no objection.
  (Mr. BOEHNER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. BOEHNER. I appreciate all my colleagues and their endurance in 
this. And you all should know that Charlie Rangel and I are friends. 
We've had fierce debates. We've worked together on many bills, and he's 
someone who I talk to virtually every day in this House. And it pains 
me, it pains me to do what I had to do on behalf of my colleagues.
  We all live under a system of laws; not only all of us, but all of 
the American people. Those of us that work in this Chamber, we work 
under a set of laws and a set of rules. And when the rules are 
violated, the court system doesn't take into effect whether you were 
aware of the rules or you were aware of the laws. You either violated 
the laws or you didn't.
  And I say to my friend from New York that, considering the stories 
that occurred over the summer about the rent-controlled apartments, the 
fact that one of them was a campaign office, you could conjure up the 
fact that because it was rent-subsidized that it was, in fact, a 
campaign gift. And this latest round of stories----
  Mr. RANGEL. Will you yield just on that one point?
  Mr. BOEHNER. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. RANGEL. Rent-subsidized. If you lived a million years you could 
not tell where one subsidy came from. Stabilization and subsidies are 
entirely two different things. There is no subsidy involved. It's a 
cap.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Reclaiming my time. And then this latest round of 
stories that the gentleman from New York was kind enough to share with 
all of us raise serious questions, serious questions.
  And I just--the point of the letter that was sent yesterday was to 
ask the gentleman if he would step aside until the Ethics Committee had 
time to investigate this.
  I believe that the Ethics Committee needs to do its job, not just in 
this case, but in all cases. And I've been concerned for some time that 
the Ethics Committee has not been a functioning committee of the House. 
I understand the current circumstances. We all understand the current 
circumstances.
  But I don't want to condemn the gentleman. I've never convicted the 
gentleman, nor would I, because he is my friend. But just because he's 
my friend doesn't mean that I can excuse him from the rules of the 
House or the law of our land.
  And so I ask my colleagues to work with us. I believe, like Charlie 
does, that we, as a Congress, have to find a way to get beyond what's 
gone on around here over the last 7 or 8 years, that we have to find a 
way to work together.
  If you look at the issues that Charlie and I have worked on, George 
Miller and I have worked on, and a lot of other Members that I've 
worked on on both sides of the aisle, the big issues of our country 
will not get done by one side or the other. They will only be addressed 
in a bipartisan way if we're going to be successful. And we know we 
have big issues facing this country that are being ignored because 
we're too busy clawing at each other.
  My intent here is not to claw at my friend from New York. My intent 
here is to have justice and to have all of us live by the rules of the 
House.
  I'm sorry that I had to do it, but I have a job to do on behalf of my 
colleagues in this Chamber. I believe all of us are being held 
accountable and should be held accountable.
  Yes, I've made mistakes, and I've paid for them. I just think that 
the sooner we get this cleaned up, the better.
  But, in the meantime, in fairness to the Members of the House, that 
stepping aside would, in fact, be the right thing to do.

                          ____________________