Rangel, Charles

Source:

 African American National Biography

Rangel, Charles

(11 June 1930– ),

member of the U.S. Congress, was born in Harlem, New York, the second of three children of Ralph Rangel and Blanche Wharton. When Rangel was still young, his father abandoned them; his mother worked in New York's garment industry and occasionally did housecleaning to support them. She was active in the International Ladies ‘Garment Workers’ Union and in Harlem's civic life. In 1948 Rangel joined the army, serving until 1952; he earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service during the Korean War. Discharged as a staff sergeant, Rangel attended New York University on the G.I. Bill and in 1957 earned a BA in Business Administration. In 1960 he earned a law degree from St. John's University Law School, Brooklyn, and began the practice of law in Harlem, where he also joined the local Democratic Party club. Rangel subsequently worked in a variety of legal positions, including legal assistant to the New York district attorney, counsel to the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board, and assistant U.S. attorney. In 1964 he married Alma Carter, a social worker, and together they had two children.

In 1966 Rangel's involvement in Harlem Democratic Party politics paid off, when he was elected to the New York State General Assembly. Rangel's rise in Harlem politics was promoted by the legendary J. Raymond Jones, the first African American chair of the New York County (Manhattan) Democratic Party Committee. Four years later Rangel defeated another legend in Harlem politics—Adam Clayton Powell Jr.—and was elected to the House of Representatives. Powell, the pastor of one of Harlem's most influential churches and the first African American elected to the U.S. Congress from New York, for years had been the best-known and most influential black politician in the United States. However, despite his iconic status in Harlem and among African Americans in general, by 1970 he was vulnerable—in 1967 he had been expelled from Congress, and though he was reelected in 1968, his power was greatly diminished. In addition, because of an outstanding civil warrant, Powell could visit Harlem only on Sundays. Rangel seized the opportunity to challenge him, narrowly defeating him in the four-person Democratic primary election. Winning by a mere 150 votes and one percentage point, Rangel was successful mainly as a result of white votes. In a development unrelated to the election, a largely white section of the Upper West Side of Manhattan had been added to Powell's district. Rangel won in these white areas by fifteen hundred votes. However, like most incumbent members of the House, once elected Rangel was easily returned to office, often running unopposed or winning by margins of victory of 80 percent or more against little-known opponents. The only serious challenge to-his reelection occurred in 1994, when Adam Clayton Powell IV, a city councilman and the son of the former congressman, ran against him. Fearing the allure of the Powell name, Rangel raised nearly a million and a half dollars and easily defeated the young Powell.

Rangel came to the House the year several new black members were elected, including Bill Clay of Missouri, Louis Stokes of Ohio, and Shirley Chisholm of New York, increasing the size of the black congressional delegation from six to thirteen. Younger and more activist than their senior colleagues, Rangel and these new members decided to form the Congressional Black Caucus. Many white and several of the senior black members of the House, including Robert C. Nix of Pennsylvania and Augustus Hawkins of California, opposed the formation of the caucus, arguing that it was inappropriate for members of Congress to organize on the basis of race. But influenced by the ascendant Black Power philosophy, which called on blacks to establish racially separate organizations, Rangel and his colleagues argued that a caucus of blacks was necessary to advance the interest of blacks in the House, getting good committee assignments, for example, and nationally, through the development and articulation of a black legislative agenda. In 1974 Rangel was elected chair of the caucus, becoming its third chair after Congressmen Charles Diggs and Louis Stokes.

In his first term Rangel was assigned to two relatively minor committees—Public Works and Science and Aeronautics—whose jurisdictions had little to do with issues of concern to Harlem or blacks. However, in his second term he was assigned to the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over civil rights legislation, and to the Committee on the District of Columbia, which oversees the largely black city of Washington, D.C. Rangel was on the Judiciary Committee in 1974 when, in nationally televised proceedings, it considered articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. He spoke and voted in favor of each of the three articles charging Nixon with “high crimes and misdemeanors” that merited impeachment. Nixon resigned shortly after the committee approved the articles. In 1986 Rangel was appointed to the Ways and Means Committee, the oldest, most prestigious, and most powerful House committee, with jurisdiction over taxes, international trade, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and welfare. In 1995 Rangel, the first African American to serve on the committee, became the committee's ranking Democrat, meaning that he would become its first African American chair if the Democrats were to win a majority of House seats.

Charles B. Rangel chairs the House Committee hearing on narcotics and drug abuse in Washington, D.C., 10 December 1976. (AP Images.)

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Reflecting the concerns of his district specifically and, to some extent, the concerns of blacks nationwide, Rangel also served on the Select Committee on Crime and the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse, chairing the latter from 1983 until it was abolished in 1993. More so than many big-city ghettos, Harlem had been plagued by problems of crime and drug trafficking. Rangel used his position of leadership on the Narcotics Committee to press for policies to interdict the flow of drugs into the country and to spend money on rehabilitation as well as incarceration. However, Rangel's position on narcotics generally has been relatively conservative. For example, he opposed the legalization of marijuana and other drugs and the provision of free needles to addicts to combat AIDS.

Rangel has several important legislative accomplishments to his credit. He was a principal author of federal empowerment zone legislation (1993) and the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (1978), both designed to attract jobs to low-income areas like Harlem. He also sponsored the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (1986) to encourage home ownership among the poor. And he was a principal author of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, legislation designed to encourage trade between the United States and African nations.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, after more than thirty years in the House, Rangel was one of its most influential and widely respected members. He was also a leading player in national Democratic Party politics and a broker in New York City and New York State politics, successfully maneuvering in 2002 to obtain the Democratic Party nomination for governor for Carl McCall, an African American. He encouraged and helped Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president, win a seat in the U.S. Senate, representing New York. He was also instrumental in persuading President Bill Clinton to locate his post-presidential office in Harlem. In 2003, as the United States approached war with Iraq, Rangel introduced legislation to reinstate the military draft, arguing that all social classes, rather than mainly the lower-middle class and the poor, should be represented in the military. Like his predecessor, Rangel managed to project his representation of Harlem onto a national platform, where he has been recognized as one of the highest ranking and most influential black elected officials in the United States.

Democratic victories in the Congressional midterm elections of 2006 demonstrated the nation’s dissatisfaction with George W. Bush’s foreign and domestic policies, and finally enabled Rangel to become the first African American chair of the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means. Rangel chaired the committee until the 2010 midterm elections, when the Republicans took back the House. Rangel’s powers as Committee chair were more limited that he might have hoped, however. He continued to face a Republican president for the first two years of his tenure, and in 2008, before the election of Democrat Barack Obama, Rangel faced an ethics probe related to improper use of his office to raise money for the Rangel Center at the City College of New York. Under pressure from colleagues and the White House as well as from Republicans, Rangel stepped aside as Ways and Means Chair in March 2010. Shortly after the 2010 midterm elections—in which Rangel was returned with 80 percent of the vote—the House Ethics Committee found him guilty on 11 counts, including failing to report rental income; improper use of a rent-stabilized apartment; and soliciting charitable donations from people with business before Congress. In December 2010, Rangel faced an official censure from the House, becoming the first Congressman to receive that condemnation since 1983, and only third since the Committee’s founding in 1966. In 2007 Rangel published an autobiography, And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since: From the Streets of Harlem to the Halls of Congress.

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