Player of the Week: Rep. Charles Rangel

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) is arguably facing the biggest week of his career.

The House ethics committee has charged the former Ways and Means Committee chairman with violations, which be will specified at a hearing on Thursday.

{mosads}House Democratic leaders clearly want the Rangel saga to be over, but it’s hard to see how they get there from here.

The 80-year-old Rangel, who requested the ethics probe, has been waiting for the chance to defend himself and has shown no willingness to accept a deal in which he is obliged to admit wrongdoing.

With nonpartisan political experts predicting the House could flip to the GOP this fall, the stakes are high. The Rangel trial could be a major distraction to the Democratic message, especially now with fewer than 100 days before the midterms.

On Friday night, The Hill reported that Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio), a GOP target this fall, called for Rangel to resign. It’s a good bet there will be others who follow Sutton’s lead.

Even if Rangel strikes a deal with the ethics panel to avoid the spectacle of a public trial, House Republicans are likely to offer a motion calling for Rangel to resign or be expelled. Most vulnerable Democrats do not want to go on record backing a lawmaker who is so radioactive. 

Because of his ethics woes, the New York lawmaker is facing a competitive primary on Sept. 14. In an odd twist, Republicans could be privately rooting for him to win to keep the Rangel story alive this fall.

Earlier this year, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) publicly called on the ethics committee to finish its work on Rangel “expeditiously.” 

It’s reasonable to assume that the ethics panel believed Rangel would have accepted some deal — as most members do — and the two-year probe would be completed.

But the matter is far from closed.