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Obituary
Dan Rostenkowski, 82; House career ended in scandal
Dan Rostenkowski, 82, who mastered the craft of brokering and compromise to become one of the nation's most influential congressmen but whose imprisonment on fraud charges came to symbolize the excesses of power, died Wednesday at his vacation home on Benedict Lake in Wisconsin. He also lived in Chicago in the home in which he grew up.
Mr. Rostenkowski, son of a ward heeler and congressman, won a seat in the Illinois legislature after college. He was elected to the House in 1958 at age 30, its youngest member for many years.
His knack for deal-making, often with Republicans, helped him land a coveted seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee in 1961. He helped write legislation that created Medicare in 1966. As the committee's chairman, he helped fashion laws on taxes, trade, and welfare. In 1983, he brokered the deal that led to passage of a bill that kept the Social Security system solvent.
Mr. Rostenkowski also forged compromises that led to the landmark 1986 tax reform act, a major rewriting of the federal tax code that sharply reduced tax rates and eliminated loop-holes, special preferences, and tax avoidance schemes.
But his esteem and power on Capitol Hill eroded and then collapsed in 1992, when a federal grand jury investigated reports of wrongdoing in the House post office. Investigators said that he had bought $22,000 in stamps from the House post office with public money and may have converted them to cash.
The federal inquiry lasted two years. In 1994, he was formally charged with 17 counts of abusing his congressional payroll by paying at least 14 people who did little or no official work; trading stamp vouchers for at least $50,000 in cash; misusing his office's expense accounts; and obstruction of justice, among other counts.
He fought back and continued his reelection campaign, but was beaten by Republican Michael P. Flanagan in the watershed 1994 midterm elections in which the GOP won control of the House and the Senate. The scandal was widely seen as a factor in that triumph.
Two years later, as his federal trial approached, he negotiated his last important deal, pleading guilty to two counts of mail fraud. He served 15 months in federal prisons and two months in a halfway house, and paid a $100,000 fine. Upon release, he issued an unapologetic statement. "Bureaucracies all have a certain mindless logic," he said. "I'll reserve my critique of America's criminal justice system for another day."
Daniel David Rostenkowski was born in Chicago on Jan. 2, 1928, the only son among three children. His father, Joseph, was the ward's alderman and later served in Congress.
He attended St. John's Military Academy in Wisconsin, where he played three sports. Connie Mack invited him to try out for the Philadelphia Athletics, but he turned it down to abide by his father's wish that he pursue politics. After serving in the Army in Korea and attending Loyola University in Chicago, he ran for the Illinois House and won in 1952. After a term as a state senator, he was elected to Congress in 1958 for the first of 18 terms.
Biographer Richard Cohen said Mr. Rostenkowski was "among the half-dozen most influential members of Congress during the second half of the 20th century."
He is survived by his wife, LaVerne, and three daughters.
Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Thursday, August 12, 2010
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE