Oh, what a Rangel web we weave...
By Dale McFeatters
Sunday, March 7, 2010 - Added 2d 1h ago
When her party took control of the House, future Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged, “The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.”
That happy day may yet arrive but the majority Democrats are taking their time getting there, a case in point being the nearly week-long machinations needed to get Rep. Charles Rangel to step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful and desirable posts in Washington.
On Wednesday, following a closed-door meeting with Pelosi the night before, Rangel, 79, finally did - temporarily, he said. The previous week the House Ethics Committee had admonished him for violating House rules by accepting corporate-funded travel to the Caribbean.
The panel is also investigating charges he failed to pay taxes on rental income from a cottage in the Dominican Republic, used congressional letterhead to raise money for a college department named after him, failed to report $500,000 in personal wealth on his financial disclosure forms and allegedly misused rent-controlled apartments in New York.
Rangel’s abdication was hardly an act of conscience. In a sense, he got out the door one step ahead of the sheriff. The Republicans were preparing a resolution calling for his removal and had begun picking up enough Democrats that they were within reach of passing it.
Ways and Means has jurisdiction over taxes, the spending bills that make up the federal budget, job creation and a big piece of health care. It could not go long without a chairman. The problem was that the next in line for chairman was California Rep. Pete Stark, 78, in the words of Politico, “a controversial member who has a long history of rude, brusque and otherwise offensive behavior toward fellow lawmakers, constituents and even ethics investigators . . .”
Stark lasted one day as acting chairman. On Thursday, Pelosi told House Democrats that the new chairman would be the number three member of the committee, Rep. Sander Levin, 78, of Michigan.
Rangel is planning to return to the chairmanship when the other ethics investigations are resolved. The speaker will surely have something to say about that.
Dale McFeatters writes for Scripps Howard News Service
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