None other than Pete Stark, whose reputation precedes him:
Stark was involved in a recent confrontation with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), a quasi-independent body Democrats created in 2008 to help burnish the ethics committee’s reputation.
The OCE initiated in investigation into Stark and several other members after press reports began scrutinizing the lawmakers’ claim of homestead tax deductions for residences they own in the D.C. area.
Stark faced scrutiny for claiming a $3,770 tax break in Maryland because he was registered to vote in Fremont, Calif., and rented a house there.
Throughout his interview with investigators, the OCE report said Stark was “extremely belligerent and frequently insulted OCE staff members interviewing him.”
It is nice to see that Charlie Rangel has finally been forced to give up his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee, but the issue should have been forced a long time ago. Instead, the House Democratic leadership sought to protect Rangel for as long as possible; this despite promises of “the most ethical Congress in history,” “draining the swamp,” and battles against the “culture of corruption” that supposedly only existed when Republicans controlled Congress.
I am sure that some people will try to sell Rangel’s (temporary) departure from his chairmanship as some kind of profile in courage for him, and for the rest of the Democratic leadership. But no one should be fooled.
So sayeth Harold Ford, explaining why he decided not to enter the race for the Senate seat in New York currently occupied by Kirsten Gillibrand:
Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said Tuesday that Democrats are “scared” heading into this fall’s election and that he decided not to run for the Senate from New York because he feared his party would lose the seat after a tough primary.
“The fall is going to be a tough, tough fall for whatever Democrat emerges,” Ford said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” his first since announcing Monday night that he is not running. “It would have been a tough brutal fight.”
A very good essay by Peter Beinart:
Independents are the most fickle, the most cynical, and the least ideological people in the American electorate. When they’re unhappy with the state of the country, they tend to stampede the party in power—less because they disagree on the issues than because they decide that the folks running government must be malevolent and corrupt. In Washington, congressmen violate ethics rules all the time. But when independents get in one of their sour moods, these infractions become matches on dry tinder. In 1994, the scandals concerning Rostenkowski and the House bank helped sweep the Gingrichites into power. In 2006, according to exit polls, the scandals surrounding mega-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Rep. Mark Foley did more to lose the GOP control of Congress than did the Iraq war. Pelosi became speaker, in fact, by running against the GOP’s “culture of corruption” and promising the “most ethical Congress in history.”
Now Republicans are hurling those phrases in her face. Democrats, who in April 2006 held a 17-point advantage as the party less “influenced by lobbyists and special interests,” have seen that margin dwindle to eight points, according to the Pew Research Center. The National
…
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave no indication that her support was wavering for embattled Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, in the wake of his admonishment by the House ethics panel last week.
“It said he did not knowingly violate House rules. So that gives him some comfort,” the speaker told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. Rangel was publicly admonishment by the panel for violating House rules by failing to properly disclose financial details of trips he took to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008.
The ethics panel didn’t find sufficient evidence to conclude that Rangel knew that misleading information was provided to the ethics committee before the trips were approved. His office said in a statement last week that the ethics committee “found that the chairman himself had no actual knowledge that the trip in fact violated House rules.”
Now that the House Ethics Committee has rendered its judgment, and has found that Congressman Charlie Rangel broke Congressional gift rules by taking trips to the Caribbean financed by corporate interests, is it too much to ask that he pay the consequences?
Beyond the trips, Rangel faces more troublesome allegations regarding his failure to pay taxes on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic, the use of his congressional office to raise money for the wing of a New York college named in his honor, revised financial disclosure forms that show more than $500,000 in previously unreported wealth, and his use of a rent-controlled apartment for his political committees.
Rangel said Thursday that he met with ethics investigators about a month ago to discuss those issues but he offered no details of those discussions.
Since Rangel asked the ethics panel in the summer of 2008 to scrutinize his activities, which had become a source of controversy, Democrats have defeated a series of GOP resolutions calling for his resignation as Ways and Means chairman.