Word: rangel
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Harvard was quick to appreciate that it wasn’t facing the Lions’ best lineup. Columbia was without its top two quarterbacks, seniors M. A. Olawale and Shane Kelly, as well as its top running back, senior Ray Rangel...
Ways and Means is one of Congress's most powerful clubs, the guardian of the federal tax code and the body responsible for finding a way to pay for anything Congress wants to do. The Obama Administration had counted on Rangel's committee to be a key linchpin in its push for health-care reform - which would also rank as Rangel's crowning legislative achievement. It hasn't worked out that way, at least not yet. Deeply split along party lines, the Ways and Means panel has become a target for critics who say Obama has allowed congressional Democrats...
...first thing one notices about Rangel is his appearance: every hair carefully in place with the aid of a purple comb he keeps in his pocket. The second is the way he speaks: his voice is deep and raspy, and he expresses himself with a bluntness that suggests he's been around too long to care what people think. At 79, Rangel is one of Capitol Hill's oldest lions, with an impressive backstory that lends him stature with his colleagues. "As a leader in Congress, he's a respected voice," says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi...
...Rangel has been in the House of Representatives since 1971 and on the committee since 1974. When he rose to chairman in 2007, Rangel became the first African American ever to hold the position. "To be the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is probably as close to being a major figure in a European monarchy as we have to offer," says Ross Baker, a political-science professor at Rutgers University. "The chairman is subject to the largest numbers of entreaties and colossal deference because everybody has got a tax angle. It means you are paid court...
...also means you have to watch your step. The job has been too much for men like Arkansas's Wilbur Mills and Illinois's Dan Rostenkowski, who in decades past let ethical errors derail their chairmanships. Lately, Rangel has been seen to have stumbled as well. He has become the focus of several ethics scandals over matters ranging from the relatively petty to the potentially serious. Last summer, it was revealed that Rangel was occupying four apartments at below-market rents in a Harlem building owned by a prominent real estate developer. (He has since given up one apartment that...