by Connie Hair
Human Events
10/7/2009
House Republican Conference Secretary John Carter (R-Texas) this morning introduced a Privileged Resolution calling for House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) to be removed as chairman of the committee. Carter read the resolution in its entirety during his introduction (text below). An objection to a motion to consider the resolution “as read” resulted in the House reading clerk having to read the entire resolution containing all of the scandalous details of Rangel’s conduct again.
The Democrats moved immediately to refer the resolution to the Ethics Committee — meaning they deflected a direct vote on Rangel’s actual removal. Those voting to abrogate responsibility voted to refer the resolution to committee thus keep Rangel in place during the investigation.
The measure was referred to committee by a vote of 246-153 (further breakdown at the link) with 19 voting “present” and 14 not voting. There was no requirement that the Ethics Committee act on the resolution.
Six Republicans voted in favor of referring the motion: Walter Jones (N.C.), Peter King (N.Y.), Tim Murphy (Penn.), Ron Paul (Texas), Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.) and Don Young (Alaska).
Two Democrats voted against: Travis Childers (Miss.) and Gene Taylor (Miss.).
Those opposed to the referral favor an up-or-down vote on the removal until the now 16-months-long and counting Ethics Committee investigation of multiple tax, federal disclosure, and ethics violation charges against has been concluded.
In August, Rangel made new and much-belated disclosures that he failed to report nearly a million dollars in assets on federal disclosure forms. (How does one acquire cash and assets of that magnitude on a congressman’s salary?) The Ethics Committee investigation has twice been expanded even before these latest revelations.
Connie offers the full text of the resolution in her article.
