Dan Rostenkowski, congressman sent to prison, dead at 82

CHICAGO - Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, the Chicago Democrat who became the leading architect of congressional tax policy in the Reagan era but later went to federal prison for corruption, died Wednesday, a family friend said. He was 82.

Rostenkowski, who served 18 terms before losing in 1994, died surrounded by family at his home in Lake Benedict, Wis., friend Ellen Tully told The Associated Press. He died of lung cancer, which was diagnosed last August, Tully said.

As House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Rostenkowski was known as a consensus builder and a master of legislative tactics.

He is credited with leading a 1983 effort to rescue Social Security from insolvency and pushing through a sweeping 1986 overhaul of the nation's tax system.

Friends and colleagues said that despite the corruption scandal - Rostenkowski pleaded guilty to using office funds for his own use - he will be best remembered as a master politician who got things done.

"He was the go-to guy for [Chicago] mayors," former Secretary of Commerce William Daley said, listing his father, the late Richard J. Daley, and his brother, current Mayor Richard M. Daley.

But Rostenkowski himself acknowledged that his legacy would always be tainted by his stint in federal prison.

"I know that my obituary will say, 'Dan Rostenkowski, felon,' and it is something that I have to live with," he said in a 1998 broadcast interview with Robert Novak and Mark Shields.

Rostenkowski's problems began in 1992 when a grand jury in Washington charged him with 17 counts of misusing government and campaign funds. The scandal forced him to step down as chairman and led to his 1994 defeat.

Rostenkowski served 17 months in federal prison.