Charles Rangel: “this legislative body has been very good to me, and I have been here for well over three decades. Not only did I have…”

“this legislative body has been very good to me, and I have been here for well over three decades. Not only did I have, do I have, an opportunity to serve my district and my country in this Congress, but it allowed me to meet and work with some of the most exciting, intelligent and interesting people that I never would have met had I not had the great honor of serving here. This has been especially true in the last decade where friendships have been very difficult to maintain, one, because of the legislative schedules that have been so different with the small amount of time that we spent here; two, because we don't travel abroad as a Congressional team; but, lastly, and I guess the thing that hurts the most, is that the group became not just friends, what committee, what part of the country you came from, but it was whether you were Republican or Democrat, and that made the difference.”