Rangel's Pet Cause Bears His Own Name

On June 4, 2007, Greenberg met with Rangel, City College of New York President Gregory H. Williams and Rachelle Butler, the college's vice president for development, according to Butler. Her office eventually won a $5 million donation from the C.V. Starr Foundation, the largest single gift to date. Greenberg is the foundation's chairman.

Rangel's office also recommended that officials at the college approach AIG. The congressman attended a meeting at the company's New York headquarters on April 21, 2008. A potential gift "is in discussion," Butler said. An AIG spokesman declined to comment .

Rangel said his relationship with Greenberg is based on their military service in the Korean War, for which each received a Bronze Star. Greenberg has even arranged for Rangel fundraisers in his corporate boardroom, he said.

"I can't think of one piece of legislation that impacts them, and there has never been a time that they've raised any legislation to me," Rangel said, referring to AIG.

But AIG, for instance, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress to permanently extend a tax break that allows U.S. financial services firms to defer U.S. taxes on income from certain transactions of their overseas subsidiaries, disclosure reports show. The tax break, which is set to expire this year, costs the Treasury nearly $4 billion annually, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Another donor, Nabors Industries, a Bermuda-based oil and gas drilling contractor, has lobbied against proposals to crack down on U.S.-based companies that incorporate or reorganize offshore to reduce their U.S. tax liability. Nabors chief executive Eugene M. Isenberg, in his first donation to the college, said that he pledged $500,000 and that the company matched it after meeting in 2006 with CCNY officials and Rangel.

"I don't need any special favors that I'm aware of," Isenberg said in a telephone interview.

The Rangel Center is the brainchild of Rangel and Williams, CCNY officials said. It will offer scholarships, sponsor research and house the college's new master-of-public-administration degree program.

An archive of Rangel's papers and memorabilia will record "the life of one of America's most important public servants" and "will rank with the Clinton and Carter Libraries" in importance, according to CCNY promotional materials.

Brett Silverstein, dean of social sciences at CCNY, said it is not unusual to name such centers for living people, citing as an example the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Texas, named after the former secretary of state.

"I can't speak about egos. It's not my job to do that. It's my job to say this is a very worthy thing," Silverstein said.

Rangel brooks no criticism when it comes to the center. Last year, two-term Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) objected to "sending taxpayer funds in the creation of things named after ourselves while we're still here."