Charlie Rangel’s Idaho Connection

Idaho newspapers love to find the Idaho connection. Like no other area in the country, Idaho-area media loves to connect national stories back to Idaho. Examples of how an Idaho link might be drawn:

A plane crashed and one of the people on board worked in Idaho for two months.

A serial killer was executed and his 3rd Cousin’s Ex-wife lives in Hailey.

A team won the World Series and Nephew of an-ex bat boy from the team lives in Stanley.

It’s the Idaho connection and the media must find it. How did this story tie back to Idaho?

Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has been asked to resign as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee by the New York Times.  It’s an extraordinary situation for a major metropolitan newspaper to ask for the resignation of the dean of the State’s house delgation. Why is the Times doing it?:

This recommendation does not come easily, considering the New York Democrat’s four decades of service in Congress. But Mr. Rangel himself has felt obliged to request three separate House ethics inquiries of his behavior. While denying serious improprieties, Mr. Rangel concedes that he has not lived up to the “higher standard” expected of members of Congress.

His latest admission is that as chief of Congress’s tax-writing committee, he was “irresponsible” in failing to disclose $75,000 in rental income and pay federal and state taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.

His temporary yielding of the gavel is an urgent necessity for a Democratic Congress elected two years ago on promises of an ethical housecleaning. The villa dealings only add momentum to the investigations of two earlier controversies — Mr. Rangel’s favored treatment in occupying four rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan, and his improper use of official letterheads to solicit support from charities and corporations for an academic center to memorialize his career in public service.

Mr. Rangel has hurt his case with clumsy, combative pleas of ignorance of the facts and law involving his Dominican villa. “We do make errors, even though we consider ourselves experts in terms of tax policy for the nation,” said the lawmaker, who has three decades’ experience on Ways and Means.

The Congressman in chare of writing our tax laws doesn’t know how to follow them himself. It’s telling of Washington arrogance and the latest press reports indicate ther’s even more to come.

So where’s the Idaho Connection? You see Congressman Charlie Rangel is chairman of the National Leadership PAC which contributes money to Democratic Congressional Candidates. National Leadership PAC has given $10,000 to Idaho Congressional Candidate Walt Minnick.

Those who think we need change in Washington would do well to look at one of Walt Minnick’s biggest contributors and ask whether the type of Washington Charlie Rangel wants is the type of Washington Idahoans want.