Dan Rostenkowski, 82, a product of the Chicago Democratic political machine who became one of the most powerful members of the U.S. House of Representatives before he lost his seat and was jailed for fraud, died Wednesday of cancer at his summer home in Genoa City, Wis.
In 18 terms in office, Mr. Rostenkowski worked to shake what he said was his reputation as a political hack. He rose to become chief architect of the nation's tax policies as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, and in 1983, he was instrumental in passing an overhaul of Social Security that kept the retirement system solvent.
Three years later, he engineered the most extensive revision of the nation's tax code since World War II. Hailed by President Ronald Reagan as "a second American Revolution," the bipartisan compromise closed loopholes for corporations, eliminated tax shelters and exempted millions of low-income workers from paying taxes.
"That deal could not have been done without Rostenkowski," said Paul Green, a political science professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago. "I don't know if he would pass a CPA exam, but he knew how to count votes in the House."
Mr. Rostenkowski, the son of a Chicago alderman and ward committeeman who trafficked in political favors, entered Congress in 1959 with the backing of Mayor Richard J. Daley, patriarch of the city's machine. As the mayor's man in Washington, Mr. Rostenkowski delivered billions of federal dollars to Chicago, including $450 million to repair the city's John F. Kennedy Expressway and $4 billion for the Deep Tunnel project to keep sewage out of Lake Michigan.
An expert horse-trader and arm-twister in the tradition of his hometown politics, the jowly, 6-foot-2 lawmaker from Illinois relished Washington gamesmanship.
But Mr. Rostenkowski was more interested in passing legislation than in political posturing, Green said, and was willing to court Republicans as well as his fellow Democrats. The congressman largely avoided television cameras and ignored polls, employing neither press aides nor political consultants for most of his career.
"You don't have many men like him there anymore who can work both sides of the aisle," Green said. "He reflected a bygone era, not only in Chicago politics but in national politics."
By the early 1990s, he was poised to be President Bill Clinton's most important congressional ally. But for all Mr. Rostenkowski's clout in Washington and Chicago, he was little known to the wider public until his legal troubles hit newspapers' front pages.
In 1993, former House postmaster Robert V. Rota pleaded guilty to helping representatives embezzle money through fraudulent stamp-buying deals.
The ensuing investigation resulted in a six-month jail sentence for Rep. Joseph P. Kolter (D-Pa.) and the indictment of Mr. Rostenkowski on 17 felony counts. Among other crimes, he was charged with taking at least $50,000 from the post office and using federal money to pay "ghost employees," who mowed Mr. Rostenkowski's lawn and supervised the renovation of his home instead of working on public business.
Under House rules, the indictment meant that Mr. Rostenkowski had to give up the Ways and Means chairmanship in July 1994. Months later, he lost his seat to Republican Michael Patrick Flanagan (R).
Rostenkowski's official Congress portrait in 1983
Former US Representative  died of  Wednesday at his vacation home in , Wisconsin. Rostenkowski, whose political career ended in the early 1990s after he was convicted on fraud charges, was 82.

Rostenkowski's death was confirmed by his spokesperson, Jim Jaffe, who said that the former congressman had been receiving treatment for lung cancer for a while. Rostenkowski had previously been treated for  in the 1990s.

Rostenkowski was born on January 2, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. He was an athlete and declined an invitation to try out for the  (now the Oakland Athletics) in order to pursue a career in politics. Rostenkowski attended  in Wisconsin, served with the  in , and graduated from  in 1951.

Rostenkowski's political career was supported by the  , and he became a member of the Illinois state legislature in 1952, one year after graduating from college. In 1958, when he was 30, Rostenkowski was elected to the US House of Representatives. In 1961, he began serving on the , the chief committee of the House for writing taxes. From 1981–1994, he served as the committee's chairman. Rostenkowski was involved in the creation of  in 1966 and he helped make amendments to the  system in 1983.

In 1992, a federal jury began an inquiry into the House post office, and Rostenkowski was accused of buying 22,000 in stamps with government funds and then turning them into cash. The investigation, which lasted two years, led to Republican allegations of corruption within the Democratic party. In 1994, Rostenkowski was charged with 17 felony counts, including the use of federal money to purchase furniture, and obstruction of justice. In order to avoid a trial, Rostenkowski made a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to two counts of mail fraud in exchange for fifteen months in prison, two months in a , and a US$100,000 fine.

Rostenkowski, who was not reelected for a nineteenth term in Congress in 1994, continued to maintain his innocence, and was pardoned by US President Bill Clinton in 2000.