McMahon Called by GOP to Return Rangel Campaign Donations

Republicans are hammering some of Rep. Charlie Rangel’s Democratic colleagues in the wake of recent stories surrounding Rangel’s significant underreporting of assets, among them freshman Rep. Michael McMahon of New York.

The GOP is demanding that McMahon return $15,000 in campaign donations from the embattled chairman; a spokesperson for the first-term congressman from Staten Island told the New York Post that he has no intention of returning the money to Rangel.

Since freshmen members are what biologists would call an “indicator species” of the congressional ecosystem, McMahon’s initial reaction suggests that the toxicity level of the Rangel issue is, at the moment, still tolerable.

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(Charles Mathesian, “Rangel’s Toxicity Level,” Politico, 9/04/09)