Player of the Week: Rep. Maxine Waters

Washington media will track Rep. Maxine Waters’s (D-Calif.) every move this week, especially now that the House ethics committee has released its formal charges against her.

With the abbreviated House schedule relatively light on legislative activity, the top political story on Capitol Hill is the allegations against Waters and her criticism of the ethics process that was established after Democrats gained control of the lower chamber.

{mosads}The House ethics committee announced on Monday that it has charged Waters with three counts of violating House rules and the federal ethics code.

Waters is accused of using her position to help secure Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds for OneUnited Bank, in which her husband, a former bank board member, owned a sizable stake.

The California legislator, who will turn 72 next week, is regarded as a heroine to many on the left. 

In 1992, she spoke out during the Rodney King riots and subsequently crashed a White House meeting on urban policy with then-President George H.W. Bush.

An outspoken critic of the Iraq war, she campaigned for Ned Lamont over Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in their 2006 Democratic primary. 

Waters is one of the most recognizable House members in the country. Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) has said, “People know her everywhere.”

In a 2007 profile of the House financial subcommittee chairwoman, The Hill reported that some congressional Republicans respect the liberal Waters because she says what’s on her mind.

Her method of communication has been described as “in your face,” as Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) found out when he and Waters confronted each other on the House floor over an earmark in 2009. 

Waters is now taking aim at the ethics committee, just as it is taking aim at her. She has rebuffed the ethics panel in its attempt to strike a deal with her over the issue of the TARP funds and has called on her ethics trial to start before the elections. 

In a released statement, Waters said that once she is “able to present my case, my constituents and all Americans will understand that I have not violated any House rules.”

Embattled Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) nearly reached a deal with the ethics committee on his alleged wrongdoing. Waters, however, had made it clear she has no interest in striking an accord with the panel.