Today's Date: March 28, 2024
Coachella Concerned That People Have Sex, Says AHF   •   John Legend to Perform at City Year Los Angeles’ 13th Annual Spring Break Event   •   Visit Visalia Recognizes Autism Awareness Month in April   •   Sypher Secures Strategic Partnership with FAIA to Fuel Growth   •   Jamieson Wellness Publishes Inaugural Sustainability Impact Report   •   Taro Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. Expands OTC Portfolio for Children with the Introduction of bébé Bottoms™   •   YMCA of the USA Partners With Old Spice To Increase High School Graduation Among Boys And Young Men Of Color Through Mentorship   •   Re:wild and Colossal Biosciences team up to leverage revolutionary technology to save critically endangered species on the brink   •   Empire State Realty Trust Receives WELL Health-Safety Leadership Award; Becomes Among the First Commercial Office and Multifamil   •   Fosun Management on 2023 Annual Results: Focusing on Core Industries with Established Advantages   •   Parkland Corporation Announces the Results of the 2024 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders   •   National University Receives 2024 Military Friendly® Gold Designation   •   Equalpride Partners with TransLash Media for Trans Day of Visibility, Amplifying Voices of Black Trans Femmes in the Arts   •   Torrid Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2023 Results and Initiates Fiscal 2024 Guidance   •   Carnegie Learning Named 2024 SIIA CODiE Award Finalist for Best Educational Game and Best AI Implementation in Ed Tech   •   Make-A-Wish and celebrity wish granters announce goal to recruit 1 million people to become "WishMakers"   •   Suffolk Kicks off 2024 “Build With Us @ Suffolk” Program in Boston for Trade Partners, Opening Doors for Minority-,   •   Midea Group releases its first-ever ESG brand story with an unexpected VIP visit highlighting its commitment to sustainability.   •   VIRGIN HOTELS CHAMPIONS INCLUSIVE TRAVEL FOR NEURODIVERSE TRAVELERS   •   Amerex Group Unveils Red Carter Swimwear's Revitalized Collection
Bookmark and Share

Rangel Got What He Had Coming, But Others In Congress Won't

Commentary by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

 

WASHINGTON- Politics does, indeed, make strange bedfellows. How else to characterize one of Congress’s loudest, most outspoken ultraconservatives, Rep. Peter King of New York, protesting the House vote to censure Harlem congressman Charles Rangel, an African-American, a Democrat, and a longtime paragon of liberalism?

Of course, King’s defense of Rangel had nothing to do with political affection, identification, outrage over his treatment, or even fear that the censure vote could set a dangerous precedent. No, the point was to ensure that the corruption spotlight shone brightly on the Democrats. That’s exactly what’s happened.

On the one hand, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for Rangel. He didn’t just flaunt the rules—he mocked them. As a longtime member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and for the last four years its chairman, Rangel enjoys enormous power over tax policy issues. Yet he blatantly failed to pay taxes on his own property for several years. In his half-hearted pleas for mercy, even Rangel repeatedly acknowledged that he had made “serious mistakes.” After the imbroglio broke, speculation was rampant about what might happen to him. Rangel refused a deal. He won reelection to a 21st term, so there was not much chance that he’d be expelled. When the House Ethics Committee found him guilty, by a 9-to-1 vote, of 11 violations of House rules, censure became a virtual certainty. And in fact, this week he became the first member of Congress to be censured in more than a quarter century.

Now Rangel and, to a lesser extent, California Rep. Maxine Waters are firmly imprinted in the media and public mind as the poster pair for congressional corruption. They’re black, high-profile, high-ranking Democrats, and they’re outspoken. This instantly made them inviting targets. Yet the media crucifixion of Rangel also absolves Congress from taking any real action against other of its worst offenders.

There are dozens of other lawmakers not named Rangel who are just as deserving, if not more so, of being thrust onto the political hot seat. In October 2009, for example, 27 other members of Congress were named as being under investigation for possible ethics violations. When a congressional staffer leaked a summary of the Ethics Committee’s preliminary report, the panel made it clear that the investigations were merely preliminary and the suspected violators had not been formally charged. But the checklist of allegations was far from petty: sweetheart arrangements with lobbyists, illicit campaign and finance dealings, questionable receipt of gifts, failure to disclose said gifts and other property, and questions about the reporting of taxes.

Beyond the seriousness of Rangel’s offenses, there are two glaring reasons why the other congressmen and women supposedly under investigation have escaped the same level of scrutiny. Most of the other suspected violators aren’t as well known as Rangel. And they lack his seniority and power. Only a handful on the list are Republicans, so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership couldn’t use their names to stoke public fury about alleged GOP misdeeds, whereas the other Democrats under suspicion lack Rangel’s visibility, so going after them offered the party little advantage on the P.R. front.

Making an example of Rangel, on the other hand, allows Pelosi and the Ethics Committee to self-righteously claim that the ethics rules work, that the committee is doing its job, and that House Democrats can police their own. California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the Democrat who chaired the House Ethics Committee (and a close friend of Pelosi’s), boasted that censuring Rangel proves that Congress will keep its promise to hold its members to a higher standard of ethics.

Those are noble words. But the rule of thumb in Congress has long been that you do the deals, take the money, and bend and twist the rules—just not in a way that is so flagrant and outrageous that it draws media and public attention. And most definitely not when elections are looming and Republicans can use charges of corruption to hammer Democrats or—as happened in 2006—vice versa.

Rangel has been brought low. The same may happen to Waters, who faces an even more hostile, GOP-controlled Congress whenshe returns to face the music next year.

But don’t expect to see any otherson the congressional rogue’s list being held to task. Unless, of course, their comeuppance carries major political benefits.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. 


STORY TAGS: BLACK, AFRICAN AMERICAN, MINORITY, CIVIL RIGHTS, DISCRIMINATION, RACISM, , RACIAL EQUALITY, BIAS, EQUALITY, culture



Back to top
| Back to home page
Video

White House Live Stream
LIVE VIDEO EVERY SATURDAY
alsharpton Rev. Al Sharpton
9 to 11 am EST
jjackson Rev. Jesse Jackson
10 to noon CST


Video

LIVE BROADCASTS
Sounds Make the News ®
WAOK-Urban
Atlanta - WAOK-Urban
KPFA-Progressive
Berkley / San Francisco - KPFA-Progressive
WVON-Urban
Chicago - WVON-Urban
KJLH - Urban
Los Angeles - KJLH - Urban
WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
New York - WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
WADO-Spanish
New York - WADO-Spanish
WBAI - Progressive
New York - WBAI - Progressive
WOL-Urban
Washington - WOL-Urban

Listen to United Natiosns News