Wrangling Rangel, troubled Waters

Rep. Maxine Waters’s (D-Calif.) decision to face trial rather than admit to alleged wrongdoing reduces pressure on Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to cut a deal with the House ethics committee.

Waters and Rangel are highly respected in liberal circles, and both are trying to put the ethics process itself on trial. The two members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) maintain they have been unfairly accused and want to rebut the charges against them publicly. Two are stronger than one, and Rangel and Waters know it. 

{mosads}President Obama recently hinted strongly that he would like Rangel to make a deal and so cure the party’s ethics headache. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) expressed much the same hope.

Some have questioned why Rangel did not agree to the ethics panel’s offer to accept a reprimand from the House and be done with it.

The New York Democrat has claimed his due-process rights were trampled on during the investigation, and he intends to make that case when his trial begins next month.

In March of 2008, House Democratic leaders created the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), a panel composed of members outside Congress to review allegations of impropriety in the lower chamber.

It investigated Waters and her alleged conflict of interest in urging the government to help a bank in which her husband had a financial interest. Waters opposed the creation of the OCE, which was approved on the narrowest possible vote, 207-206.

Rangel, who did not vote on that bill, boldly called on the ethics committee to investigate him after many negative accounts of his financial dealings ran in news media.

But the request backfired, for the panel members didn’t buy Rangel’s defense and charged him with breaking 13 House rules.

This ethics imbroglio comes at a bad time for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who is trying to protect her substantial but nevertheless fragile majority.

The Speaker was right to urge Rangel to give up his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee earlier this year. But what can she do now?

Under House rules, neither Pelosi nor anyone else can force Rangel to avoid the spectacle of an ethics trial.

Nearly half of the CBC has backed legislation that would significantly revamp the ethics process, notably the procedures of the OCE. 

If both the Rangel and Waters trials occur this fall as scheduled, there will be a lot of finger-pointing. And none of it will help the Democrats retain their House majority on Nov. 2.