Unraveling Rangel

It's been interesting to watch the stories that have described multiple ethics problems for Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and someone identified by The Hill as the top fundraiser for House Democrats. The Washington Post seems to have kicked things off with a story on July 14 saying that Rangel used official House stationary to solicit big donations for his Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York. There followed a series of revelations that he wasn't properly declaring income on a vacation property he owned in the Dominican Republic; that he benefited from having four rent controlled apartments (one of which he used as an office) in violation of New York City statutes; that he used taxpayer funds to lease an expensive car; that he had all but abandoned a car he owns, a Mercedes, in the House parking garage; that he inappropriately claimed a small tax deduction for having a primary residence in Washington, D.C., (his primary residence is in New York, leaving him ineligible for the D.C. tax break) and he used his campaign committee to funnel $80,000 to his son for performing little or no work on a Web site. The New York Times report that Rangel killed a retroactive tax increase for a big donor to his Center for Public Service is the latest revelation, but it's one of about a half dozen news organizations (the Washington Post, the New York Post, Politico, and WCBS-TV being the others) that have been following the story. I would suggest looking at Glenn Reynold's archives to follow the story, but there are so many links that it's hard to keep up with (that's due to the extent of Rangel's troubles, and is not fault of Reynolds).

A few thoughts on the stories we've seen to date:

Federal disclosures, some of which are now easily accessible online so that any member of the public can get to them, have played a role in some of the stories. Information from Rangel's personal financial disclosure forms, for example, featured in the stories about his vacation home (Center for Responsive Politics puts those online in a digitized format). CRP also puts up campaign committee expenditures--for both PACs and congressional campaigns--those payments featured in Politico's story on Rangel using campaign cash to benefit his son's company. Finding information about the rental car (which members can use a portion of their House office expenses to lease) isn't so easy. Some House office expense data is available online -- National Taxpayers Union puts it out (it's current through 2005). But NTU doesn't provide information on rental car expenses. You can find them buried in this report -- Rangel's car payments for his DeVille are on page 1087 of the 1188 page black and white PDF.

Shoe leather was important. It's pretty clear from reading that stories that the federal disclosures were just a part of the picture (and in some stories, no part at all). You can't get photos of Rangel lying out on a beach chair in front of his vacation property in the Dominican Republic from schedule III of a financial disclosure form. A lot of news organizations have invested resources to dig into Rangel. Which, given the financial strain the news industry is operating under, makes me wonder...

Why Rangel? And why now? He's a powerful member with ties to two cities with competitive media markets, but that was also true in 2007, 2006 and so on. I'm not complaining--I think every member should be scrutinized in the same way. It will be interesting to see how long reporters stick with this.

# VonBear
Charles Rangel has been overseeing the destruction of his Harlem district for years. It is a shame that the crown jewel of African American culture in the United States is almost extinct. Harlem is now mostly million dollar townhouses and condominiums. The black population has been decimated. The black population is now confined almost entirely to the public housing projects and given the prime river front locations of the projects it is just a matter of time before there will be no blacks in Harlem.This is Rangels true legacy.
# Papasnake
You don't suppose the MSM (or what is left of it) is perhaps trying to see if it could possible get onto the road to recovery if it reported something bad about the "other party" and someone other than GWB could maybe, just maybe do something bad? Something that they could point to and say: "We're not really biased". Of course, they waited until the other media did the uncovering of the manure pile before they jumped in. Papasnake
# Rich Vail
the media are only following it to keep the heat off Obama...and O's ties to the corrupt Chicago machine...that is the ONLY reason for the coverage of Rangel...if they are covering him...the sh-t from Blagojevich won't spatter the One.
# billb
This man is currently making decisions concerning seniors being punished by the shameful RMD rules in the IRS code to force withdrawels from the retirements of taxpayers over 70 years of age. Is there a qualification for congressmen that they pay their OWN taxes?
# Bill Allison
A few responses -- the press question I can't answer definitively, but I am positive that distracting from Blagojevich had nothing to do with it (the stories I linked were all published before the indictment), and I very much doubt reporters and editors started saying, "We need to go after a Democratic member" (but if so, why would they pick Rangel over, say, a John Murtha?). to billb -- Presidents and presidential candidates generally make their tax returns public (exception: both John Kerry and John McCain file married but separately, and chose not to release the returns of their spouses--I'm not saying it's the only reason, but note that neither one made it to the White House); wouldn't it be nice if members of Congress did the same?to VonBear: That's really interesting about the demographic changes in his district. To what extent has Rangel been involved? His career contribution numbers show that he's gotten a fair amount of money from real estate folks and building unions, but not sure if that has much to do with the changes in Harlem.
# Separation of Powers: All Eyes Are on Obama#^# But
[...] byNew York’s Charles Rangel,still aforbidable figure despite a growing collection of ethicsscandals.In the front tier are Pete Stark of California, Sander Levin of Michigan, Jim McDermott of [...]
# Ethics Panel to Clear Rangel?
[...] B. Rangel predicted, on C-SPANs Newsmakers program that aired Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, that his multitude of ethics woes would soon disappear. “I think that next Tuesday you will see a break in this and as soon as [...]
# Moe Lane » Is the fix in with Rangel?
[...] B. Rangel predicted, on C-SPANs Newsmakers program that aired Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, that his multitude of ethics woes would soon disappear. I think that next Tuesday you will see a break in this and as soon as the [...]
# Is the fix in with Rangel? - Moe_Lane’s blog
[...] B. Rangel predicted, on C-SPANs Newsmakers program that aired Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, that his multitude of ethics woes would soon disappear. I think that next Tuesday you will see a break in this and as soon as the [...]
# The Audacity of Charlie Rangel « Brian Simps
[...] The Audacity of Charlie Rangel He’s setting records, but not the good kind: He is now the subject of at least 32 simultaneous ethics issues or investigations. The Sunlight Foundation announced that it discovered 28 mysterious asset transfers by Rangel that come on top of a number of other ongoing investigations. [...]

Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Unraveling Rangel

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