Dems Push Back On Rangel

With the GOP calling for Rep. Charlie Ragel's (D-N.Y.) Ways and Means Committee chairmanship, Democrats are pushing back. Republican leaders are pressing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to pull his seat until an ethics investigation is complete and the GOP is highlighting members who have taken campaign contributions from him.

Tuesday, Democrats played the Lewis-Young card in response, highlighting a number of congressional candidates and members who have taken money from Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and Don Young (R-Alaska) and not returned it. Lewis and Young are ranking committee members and are under federal investigation.

“Hypocrisy is competing with dishonesty as the defining characteristic of House Republicans," said Doug Thornell, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "If the Republicans continue to throw stones from inside their own cracked glass houses, they’re liable to get hit by falling shards of glass.”

Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called it a "desparate" attempt to pull attention away from Rangel.  “This is clearly a desperate act on the part of Democrats to distract from Charlie Rangel’s ethical transgressions on the day that he is being called on to resign his post as Chairman of [the] powerful Ways and Means Committee," said Spain. "If Democrats are interested in upholding their promise of running the ‘most ethical congress in history’ then they might start off by kicking Charlie Rangel out of his committee chair and sending him to his lounge chair on the beach for a permanent vacation.”

The lists after the jump...
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