(Headline USA) Former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, an outspoken Harlem Democrat who spent nearly five decades on Capitol Hill and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, died Monday at age 94. He is the latest high-profile Democrat to die in recent months.
His family confirmed the death in a statement provided by City College of New York spokesperson Michelle Stent. He died at a hospital in New York, Stent said.
A veteran of the Korean War, he defeated Harlem politician Adam Clayton Powell in 1970 to start his congressional career. During the next 40-plus years, he became a dean of the New York congressional delegation and, in 2007, the first African American to chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
He stepped down from that committee amid an ethics cloud, and the House censured him in 2010. But he continued to serve in Congress until his retirement in 2017.
Rangel was the last surviving member of the Gang of Four — African American political figures who wielded great power in New York City and state politics. The others were David Dinkins, New York City’s first Black mayor; Percy Sutton, who was Manhattan Borough president; and Basil Paterson, a deputy mayor and New York secretary of state.
“Charlie was a true activist — we’ve marched together, been arrested together and painted crack houses together,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, leader of the National Action Network, said in a statement, noting that he met Rangel as a teenager.
The House censured him over ethics violations
Rangel became leader of the main tax-writing committee of the House, which has jurisdiction over programs including Social Security and Medicare, after the 2006 midterm elections when Democrats ended 12 years of Republican control of the chamber. But in 2010, a House ethics committee conducted a hearing on 13 counts of alleged financial and fundraising misconduct over issues surrounding financial disclosures and use of congressional resources.
He was convicted of 11 ethics violations. The House found he had failed to pay taxes on a vacation villa, filed misleading financial disclosure forms and improperly solicited donations for a college center from corporations with business before his committee.
The House followed the ethics committee’s recommendation that he be censured, the most serious punishment short of expulsion.
Dems Dropping Like Flies
Rangel’s death comes just days after Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who most recently held a prominent position as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, died last Wednesday at the age of 75.
Before that, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., passed away last month—making him the second Democrat to die in office in as many weeks at that time. Another Democratic House member, Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas, died a week before Grijalva from health issues.
Turner, in turn, had replaced U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died last July after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
