United States Congress. He was re-elected by large margins, locking in the black vote, and winning a large number of white votes in his district. After the 1983 census, the district was renumbered as the 9th District, and was drawn as a black-majority district. With the percentage of black voters increasing due to increased white flight, Ford then won re-election by gaining more than 70 percent of the vote. After he was indicted, he still garnered more than 50 percent of the vote. He served on a number of House committees including: Banking, Currency and Housing; Veterans' Affairs, and the Select Committee on Assassinations that investigated the death, among others, of Martin Luther King Jr. He was a member of the influential House Ways and Means Committee beginning in 1975, and chaired the subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment. He served as the chairman of the House Select Committee on Aging during the 102nd and 103rd Congresses. Ford obtained ample federal funds for his district through his membership on the House Ways and Means Committee. He focused his work in Congress on helping lower income constituents. He advocated for increased federal government assistance for job training, health care, and unemployment supplemental benefits with welfare as a safety net. He supported Democratic President Carter's initiatives to rebuild central cities, and opposed cuts to programs such as Medicare and food stamps that were passed during the administration of Republican President Ronald Reagan. Ford proposed comprehensive welfare reform legislation to gradually transition recipients with children over the age of six from welfare to work. The legislation had a high start up cost due to the education and job training aspects, and was opposed by the Reagan administration. Ford suffered in the eyes of many for the antics of his brother John Ford, who had been elected to the Tennessee State Senate in the same 1974 election. John Ford was accused, but never criminally convicted, of driving between Memphis and Nashville at high speeds while in possession of a legal firearm. Harold Ford said he had no control over his brother's actions. Bribery trials In 1987, federal prosecutors obtained an indictment against Ford from a grand jury in eastern Tennessee. The indictment was based on testimony from two bankers, both partners of Jake Butcher, who pled guilty to bank fraud under a plea bargain. Ford was charged in 18 counts of conspiracy and fraud