This week, the House Ethics Committee provided a major setback for “the most honest, open, and ethical Congress in history," as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) deemed her Democratic-controlled House upon taking power in 2006. They did this by charging long-serving New York Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel with 13 congressional ethics violations.
Rangel, who is currently finishing up his 20th term in the House, has been under investigation for quite some time. He stepped down from his position as chairman of the all-powerful, tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee earlier this year.
One of the charges lodged against Rangel ironically comes in the form of a tax violation – where the Congressman failed to disclose nearly $600,000 in income and assets. He is also being accused of accepting benefits and favors from donors that potentially influenced his congressional actions.
Rangel’s charges come at a difficult time for his fellow Democrats, who already face an uphill battle in keeping their hold on many House and Senate seats this election cycle. His trial is set to begin in September, less than two months before Americans collectively decide whether the Democrats should continue to hold their power in Congress.
Amid the public disdain for the excessive spending practices of congressional Democrats in the past two years coupled with this scandal, one cannot help but draw parallels to the situation congressional Republicans faced only four short years ago, when they lost their power in the House and Senate.
In 2006, Democrats, led by the then-vigilant Pelosi, were able to successfully campaign against the “culture of corruption” supposedly promulgated by their Republican counterparts serving in the people’s House. Sure, public dissatisfaction with the Iraq War and the unchecked spending by the GOP Congress also had something to do with people voting against them that year. However, a string of scandals ranging from former San Diego-based Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham accepting bribes to former Florida Congressman Mark Foley inappropriately exchanging messages with congressional pages helped to sink their party’s electoral prospects indefinitely as well.
A Rangel trial in September could certainly serve to be the final nail in the Democrats’ political coffin this time around.
As the Ethics Committee put it, this is a matter of the public trust. Throughout history, elected officials have exhausted the public trust time and again to serve their own interests. Rangel may have gotten away with it for 40 years, but his lengthy tenure should not bar him from the scrutiny any elected official would face under similar circumstances. Three of his Democratic colleagues have already called on him to resign and many more likely feel the same way (in private). However, it’s a probably little difficult to tell a veteran member of the House, who ranks 4th out of 435 in seniority, that he needs to jump ship and do it quickly.
The Democrats cannot not afford any more political “hiccups” between now and November. Rangel was apparently too stubborn to settle with the Ethics Committee and avoid these formal charges. Many in his party fear he will be equally stubborn at keeping his seat. He has arrogantly dismissed all the accusations that this investigation has brought against him for the past two years and now appears offended that they have been formalized into real charges this week as well.
Perhaps, any one of us who was entrusted to write America’s tax laws would be swept away with the false sense of security that we, ourselves, were above the law. But, unfortunately for Rangel, that is not the case. Even his longtime ally and defender Speaker Pelosi commented on the situation by saying, with regard to Rangel’s trial in the fall, “the chips will fall where they may.” Not exactly a vote of confidence from someone who once dismissed these allegations altogether.
Even if Rangel is able to skate through his trial and even win reelection to his Harlem-based House seat, the damage will likely already be done for his party. After all, Rangel is not just any Democrat, but one who has been trusted to do the people’s business for four decades. Following the Democratic takeover four years ago, Pelosi arrogantly claimed her party was going to “drain the swamp” of corruption that had supposedly only plagued Congress when Republicans were in control.
Now, the Democrats have their turn to ride the wave of corruption and see where it takes them by the time the people ultimately go to the polls. We’ll be watching Rangel in the next month or so to see if he spares his party the shame of a trial and possibly seeks a deal to resign before it is inevitably scheduled to begin.
One thing that is certain in all this is the public trust has been abused. Although the party in power purports to stand for many things, it stands for keeping that very power above all else. The question remains whether Rangel has a greater loyalty to the interests of himself or to those of his party. The question of whether such loyalty extends to the interests of his country above all else has already been answered.
Comments
Congressman Rangel finally got caught, after 40 years of stealing America blind. “40 years of service?" And $2.00 might get him a cup of coffee. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and a dozen more race baiters are conspicuously absent in this unfolding Demo disaster which speaks clearly and loudly for itself. No more white guilt to fall back on. I wonder if whitey will ever wake up to the fact that slavery started hundreds if not thousands of years before any white, yellow, green or blue skinned man was around, by so-called African Kings, rulers, etc., selling and bartering their own people as forms of currency. Even more amazing, slavery, is openly and notoriously continuing to this day with "Oh well..." as a response, even less from the Sharptons and Jacksons! Take a trip to Haiti today, or next week, or anytime and bring back great souvenirs, even hand made Vodoo dolls of Al, Jesse, Obama even a slave or two to help carry your bags.....Bon Voyage!
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