PUBLIC SERVICE….In the New York Times today, David Kocieniewski tells us the story of the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at City College of New York. The school was having trouble raising money, so in the summer of 2006 a friend of Rangel’s, Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau, suggested that he hit up Eugene Isenberg, CEO of Nabors Industries.
Isenberg, unsurprisingly, was open to the idea of helping out the future chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Nabors Industries, you see, was one of the companies that had rushed to reincorporate offshore in 2002 even though they knew legislation was in progress that would retroactively prevent them from doing so. Rangel, who loudly blasted the companies who were moving offshore, favored the anti-Nabors legislation, but Republicans eventually killed it and Nabors retained its tax haven.
Fast forward to 2007, and the same legislation was introduced again. This time, though, Rangel opposed it:
On Feb. 12, the day the bill was being marked up by the committee he leads, Mr. Rangel held two discussions at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan. First, the congressman sat down for breakfast with Mr. Isenberg and Mr. Morgenthau to further talk about Mr. Isenberg’s support for the Rangel center, Mr. Morgenthau said. Mr. Isenberg said that after breakfast, he escorted Mr. Rangel across the room, where the lobbyist for Nabors, Kenneth J. Kies, was waiting.
Over sweet rolls and coffee, Mr. Kies asked Mr. Rangel if he would maintain his opposition to the efforts to take away the company’s loophole. Mr. Rangel said he would, Mr. Kies and Mr. Isenberg said in interviews.
…. Eleven days later, a check for $100,000 from Mr. Isenberg was cashed by City College….The next month, Mr. Rangel presided over Ways and Means hearings during which he presented four witnesses who testified that the effort to eliminate the loopholes was bad policy because it was a retroactive tax increase. No testimony was taken from those on the other side, and nothing was offered to explain why Mr. Rangel was now defending Nabors and the other companies.
In their defense, Isenberg committed the money to CCNY before the breakfast with Rangel, and Rangel says that he’s philosophically opposed to retroactive tax increases. But this still doesn’t look good, does it? As Michael Kinsely likes to say, the real scandal is what’s legal.
