House of Representatives votes to censure veteran N.Y. Rep. Charles Rangel for financial misconduct.
Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, a 40-year veteran of Congress, faces an almost certain censure by the House of Representatives, a devastating defeat for a man who insisted to the end that he never meant to violate House rules.
If the House votes for censure Thursday, the New York Democrat will have to humbly walk to the front of the chamber to receive his punishment. He’ll stand in front of his colleagues while Speaker Nancy Pelosi reads him a resolution condemning his ethical misbehavior.
The House ethics committee took a hard line toward Rangel, the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Most past censures involved congressmen who enriched themselves. Rangel was not charged with lining his pockets, although he did fail to pay taxes for 17 years on income from a vacation villa he owns in the Dominican Republic.
In Rangel’s case, the House ethics committee said, his long pattern of fundraising and financial misdeeds justified the most severe penalty short of expulsion.
Fellow Democrats on the committee showed Rangel little more mercy than Republicans, as the committee of five members from each party voted 9-1 on Nov. 18 to recommend censure.
Rangel has had a difficult time accepting the punishment and planned to argue on the floor of the House for a lesser reprimand — a vote disapproving his conduct but without the requirement that he stand before his colleagues to accept the discipline.
His argument is that censure is reserved for corrupt congressman, and he’s not one of them.
