In December 2008, OneUnited became one of the first minority-owned institutions to receive federal funds - $12 million - through the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, thanks in part to a September 2008 meeting between bank executives and Treasury officials that Waters arranged. In March 2009, officials discovered her husband's connections to the bank (he previously served on the board and owned at least $250,000 of its stock), and Waters role in setting up the meeting came into question.

In August 2010, the House ethics committee issued a charge against her with three counts, including using improprer influence and dispensing special favors.

Civil Rights

Beginning with her 14-year tenure in the California Assembly and her roles in both the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns of Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Waters has made a name for herself as an important political figure in the black community, both locally and nationally. She has long been a proponent of affirmative action and measures to support minority-owned small businesses. In 1998, she led the development of the Minority AIDS Initiative that now receives approximately $400 million annually.

Early in her House career, Waters had a chance to expand her visibility on the national stage in the aftermath of the 1992 L.A. race riots, which ravaged large swaths of her district. After the riots broke out, Waters flew back to her district immediately and was instrumental in returning running water to the riot area and pushing a post-riot emergency act through Congress. She also seized the chance to be in the national spotlight, warning that, "Los Angeles is under siege. The violence could spill over to many other cities in this country."

Waters has also framed drug policy as a race issue, claiming that the war on drugs, as played out in places like south central L.A., amounts to "apartheid." She has sponsored numerous bills to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug crimes.

The Economy

From her seat on the House Financial Service Committee, Waters has had ample opportunity to berate the CEOs of banks receiving federal bailout money. At a February 2009 hearing, she addressed the heads of J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and five other large finance firms: "To the captains of the universe sitting here before all of us, all of my political life I have been in disagreement with the banking industry," she said.

She also publicly grilled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about his connections to investment bank Goldman Sachs. "Underneath all of this is a conversation about the linkages and the connections of a small group of Wall Street types that are making decisions," she said. Waters voted with the Democrats for the $700 billion financial bailout measure in fall 2008, and for the $789 billion federal stimulus package that passed in February 2009.

She has long been an opponent of so-called predatory lending practices, redlining and other forms of discriminatory lending.

Iraq War

In 2002, Waters was one of 11 House members who voted against the use of force in Iraq. Along with Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and several other House Democrats, Waters founded the "Out of Iraq Caucus" in 2005, and currently chairs the caucus. In the summer of 2006, she campaigned in Connecticut for Ned Lamont in his primary battle against Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) because of Lamont's anti-war stance.

At the time of its creation, the anti-war group was on the left-most fringe of the Democratic Party, but by 2007, with popular opinion shifting against the war, Waters, Lee and Woolsey became important figures in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)'s effort to pass a bill requiring the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq by August 2008. The bill ultimately failed.

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