[/caption]It has been a long time – two years – since it was reported that Charles Rangel, the senior Congressman from New York, was being looked at for various alleged ethics violations. Justice must be awfully slow on Capitol Hill, but the Christian Science Monitor is reporting that the House Ethics Committee has finally charged Rangel with ethics violations.
It was these alleged ethics violations, which forced Rangel, the former Ways and Means Chairman, to step down. The specific charges are: failure to report rental income, fund-raising activities, and the use of four rent-controlled apartments.
There is an adjudicatory investigative committee now looking at the matter, and there are those who think that these charges might force Mr. Rangel from office. It doesn’t help matters that this is an election year, and that the Republicans are pounding Democrats over ethics in light of the platform stance of no tolerance that President Obama took during his campaign.
If the Democrats were not seen as losing seats during the November mid-term elections, then the charges could have lingered some more. But Dems see the public’s anti-incumbent mood and pulled the trigger to charge Mr. Rangel.
It is sad for the elderly Mr. Rangel to be now charged so late in life on alleged ethics violations, but he is a seasoned and gifted lawyer, who should have known the rules, especially those dealing with tax breaches. I say this because he was the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee charged with authoring the rules governing taxes.
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