{"id":386552,"date":"2010-03-03T10:20:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T15:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.72912"},"modified":"2010-03-03T11:50:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T16:50:58","slug":"more-on-charlie-rangel-and-the-ct-delegation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/386552","title":{"rendered":"More on Charlie Rangel and the CT delegation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Himes<\/a> wasn’t the only congressman from Connecticut to call for Charlie Rangel to give up his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means committee.<\/p>\n

Chris Murphy, a Democrat from the 5th District, also thought Rangel should give up his gavel (which he did<\/a> this –temporarily at least — this morning.) <\/p>\n

“I called for him to step down as chairman yesterday,” Murphy said in a brief phone interview this morning. “I just felt there was enough smoke circling around him and enough charges still pending that his ability to be chairman of that committee was compromised.”<\/p>\n

UPDATE: What does U.S. Rep. John Larson, one of the most powerful members of the House, think of the Rangel matter? A senior aide to the 1st District Democrat said he was “involved in leadership conversations” about Rangel and was confident that the rules of the House would be followed. “Chairman Rangel did the noble thing in stepping aside…he wasn’t asking the entire caucus to take a vote on his behalf,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Murphy’s staff is combing through campaign finance records to determine how much money Rangel has contributed to his campaign in the past. While Rangel has not given Murphy any money in the current election cycle, the New York Democrat has donated to Murphy in previous campaign seasons.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to find out how much it is and we will give it charity,” Murphy said. “We’ll disperse it out of our account.”<\/p>\n

Himes yesterday sent checks totaling $16,000 to various Fairfield County charities. The money represents contributions made to his campaign from Rangel.<\/p>\n

Himes and Murphy were among the relatively small circle of congressional Democrats calling for Rangel to abdicate his chairmanship and Murphy said he thinks their statements may have helped spur Rangel’s decision.<\/p>\n

“I came down here on a platform of cleaning up Congress,” Murphy said. “And I’ve got to be prepared to hold both Republicans and Democrats to the ethical standards that I’ve set.”<\/p>\n

Greg Blair, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, sees it differently. In response to Himes’ call for Rangel to resign, Blair issued the following statement: “Give Jim Himes some credit – in the face of overwhelming political pressure and any sense of propriety, he managed to hold onto his dirty cash and back Charlie Rangel until the last possible minute.<\/p>\n

“As even his fellow Democrats were turning and running from their now-deposed colleague in droves, Himes was playing political games as he attempted to keep Rangel’s tainted contributions. Congratulations to Congressman Himes for finally giving up on his shell game and being shamed into doing the right thing.”<\/p>\n

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Jim Himes wasn’t the only congressman from Connecticut to call for Charlie Rangel to give up his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means committee. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from the 5th District, also thought Rangel should give up his gavel (which he did this –temporarily at least — this morning.)  “I called for him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4000,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4000"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}