The Rangel verdict: everyone loses

Tuesday’s finding by a panel of the House Ethics Committee
that the popular Harlem Democrat is guilty of 11 ethics violations is a sad
smirch on the proud record of one of Capitol Hill’s most engaging characters.

The “discipline” of a member as beloved among his
colleagues as Rangel will doubtlessly be hailed by some in Congress as proof that
members are serious about policing themselves. And Rangel’s friends may take
some comfort from the panel’s apparent conclusion that he was sloppy but not
corrupt in managing his office and some of his personal affairs.

What a shame.

The fact that he wasn’t corrupt doesn’t mean Rangel was ethical.

Among other things, he used his position as chairman of
the tax law-writing Ways and Means Committee to solicit donations to a Center
for Public Service bearing his name at the City College of New York. Though
none of the money went into Rangel’s personal account, millions were provided
by individuals and companies that routinely sought Rangel’s help to change or
preserve tax laws.

Rangel offered an “everybody does it” defense, noting that
other lawmakers have used their positions to help other worthy causes. He has a
point, but do we really want a Congress in which members raise money for
charity in exchange for lending a sympathetic ear to corporate pleadings for
tax breaks or government contracts?

Beyond that, as Common Cause argues here, the House’s treatment of the
Rangel case is an embarrassment.

The “facts” were never really in dispute but took more
than two years to develop, largely because Rangel missed filing deadlines that
the committee never really enforced. Rangel’s defense cost in excess of $1.6
million and his lawyers quit when he ran out of money, leading him to plead on
Monday for yet another delay; the committee, finally locating its spine, said
no.

The whole thing should have been resolved in a few months,
at most. And it might have been had the House entrusted the investigation to
the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog created late in
2008.

The OCE has compiled an enviable record, investigating
dozens of cases efficiently and fairly, but was uninvolved in the Rangel matter
because the allegations against him predate its creation.

Now, despite its successes, or more likely because of them,
the House’s new Republican majority and a substantial number of Democrats
apparently are bent on closing the OCE or stripping away much of its
investigatory authority.

Meanwhile Rangel, while perhaps humiliated by the affair,
remains in Congress and may even reclaim a leadership position on the Ways and
Means Committee.

And so goes what passes for ethics enforcement in the
House.

Dale
Eisman is senior researcher/writer at Common Cause.