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Edward KocheEdward Koche
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Session:         Page of 617

about their going to jail because I was a character witness for both of them at their trials. That was interesting.

Well, I lose to Charlie Rangel, and I'm really distressed, and I think to myself, “I'm just going to forget about it; I'll stay on Banking and Currency.” But then I thought about it, and I talked with Ronay, my administrative assistant, and David Brown. And after I got over the pain -- there's a certain amount of pain in a rejection, thinking you're better and you're not selected and they like you better and obviously they don't -- whatever it is, the personal aspect of it -- but you know you're better -- and if it's on a merit basis, you should get it; and you don't, and you're angry, especially if you believe that reverse discrimination is bad for the country. It was certainly bad for me. But I picked up my hurt, so to speak, and decided that I would try for the Appropriations Committee in getting a spot, and so I told people I wanted to be on the Appropriations Committee.

There we had two ballots. On the first ballot Scheuer ran against me and Dick Ottinger, and I think we had something like 27 people voting -- that would be the total that could vote -- and I think I got one less than a total majority. So maybe I got 12 and each of them got six, something like that. And then they each said, “Well, all right, instead of having a second ballot, we forego and Koch gets that seat.” And then each of them ran in a second ballot in the event there was a third seat available, and Scheuer won that particular





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