From http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1268
Democratic Member of Congress
Member of the radical Progressive Caucus
Has called for a new trial for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal
His voting record is rated between 95 and 100 percent by the leftwing group Americans for Democratic Action.
Chaka Fattah is a Democratic Member of Congress who represents the Second District of Pennsylvania. With new boundaries drawn in 1992, the state's only black majority (61 percent) district includes much of downtown Philadelphia as well as Cheltenham Township.
Chaka Fattah was born in Philadelphia in 1956. His mother is community activist Sister Falaka Fattah, who his official papers archived at Temple University describe as "the founder of an urban Boys Town in West Philadelphia." This institution is the House of Umoja (Swahili for "Unity"), which helps African-American teenaged males who have suffered physical or psychological abuse.
By age 21 Chaka Fattah was Assistant Director of the House of Umoja. Three years later, in 1980, he became a special assistant to Philadelphia's director of housing and community development. (His name Chaka, a variant of the same first name as African warrior-ruler Shaka Zulu, in Swahili means "Great King." Fattah can be translated "opener of the gates of sustenance.") In 1982, at age 25, he became the youngest person elected to the state legislature, moving up to the state senate six years later, serving there until 1994. He studied at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1984. In 1986 he completed a masters degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1991 when veteran Congressman William Gray resigned to become President of the United Negro College Fund, Fattah ran for his seat as a Consumer Party candidate against the Democratic ward leaders' nominee and lost. In 1994, backed by Philadelphia's African-American clergy and running as a Democrat, Fattah won with 58 percent of the vote.
Congressman Fattah belongs to the radical Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives. The leftwing Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) rates his voting record 95-100 percent on the left side of legislation.
Along with other leftwing members of the House, Fattah voted against the use of force in Iraq but also against allowing oil drilling on a scant 20 acres of the 1.2 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), thus voting to keep America dependent on Middle Eastern oil.
Fattah is among the most prominent lawmakers calling for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted and serving a life sentence for the 1981 cold-blooded murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
In 2000 Fattah was one of only 15 Members of Congress to vote against the "Born-Alive Infants Protection Act." This measure provided that if during the procedure commonly called a "partial birth abortion" a nearly-born infant slipped entirely out of its mother before its brains were vacuumed out, it would acquire the human rights of a person already born.
Chaka Fattah sits on the powerful Appropriations Committee and is ranking Democratic member on the committee that oversees the District of Columbia. Nearly three-quarters of his campaign contributions come from organized labor and trial lawyers.
Oh - THAT Fattah- didn't put him together with the Chaka Fattah that I knew about in Congress.
He is certainly one of the most ideologue liberal members of congress - probably left of Kennedy if that's possible. And even crazier.
I do remember my father saying that Philly was going down the tubes - and that was 50 years ago.
The poor but decent neighborhoods where I grew up (West Philly, Overbrook Park, Oxford Circle) are not at all the same decent places they once were.
I revisited the West Philly neighborhood in 1986 (40th & Girard) and it looks like Berlin cica 1945. That's not how it was when I grew up - not at all. We weren't rich - but the streets were clean and safe when I was a kid.
A long time ago.