Is the sun about to set on Charlie Rangel?
Well, the voters get the last word — and a respectable poll shows the 84-year-old, 22-term institution with a healthy and apparently widening lead going into New York’s 13th congressional district primary election on Tuesday. So, it would seem not.
What a pity.
Because if there was ever a fellow who embodies the dysfunctionalities of Washington, Congress and contemporary elective politics, he is Rep. Charles Bernard Rangel of Harlem — the only chairman of the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee ever to be pressured from that post for failure to pay his own taxes.
Rangel’s humiliation occurred four years ago. But the House, ever eager to protect its own, unsurprisingly waited until after the November 2010 election to censure Rangel — depriving his constituents of an opportunity to deliver immediate judgment.
After the outrage cooled, Harlem voters had an opportunity two years ago to reject Rangel — who instead won a 1,100-vote victory in a spirited primary challenge mounted by his principal opponent in Tuesday’s race, state Sen. Adriano Espaillat of The Bronx.
Yet the stain endures.
It wasn’t always so. Rangel is a decorated combat veteran of the Korean War. As a younger man, he saw his opportunities in public affairs and took ’em — paying his dues in local politics and serving in the Albany Legislature before mounting an audacious challenge to the legendary Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1970.
From there it was clear sailing, electorally speaking. By the time of his censure, he arguably had become the most powerful African-American in Congress, if not the nation.
But, all along, the ethics clock was ticking.
It came to a head when the House ethics committee found that Rangel had engaged in a “pattern of indifference or disregard for the laws, rules and regulations of the United States and the House of Representatives.”
The committee determined that, as The Post first reported, Rangel had failed to pay taxes on thousands of dollars in rental income from a Caribbean villa he owned; had used official stationary to solicit millions from companies with business before his committee to fund a City University center in his name — and had even been so petty as to abuse New York’s rent-regulation laws.
Those are the highlights. The details were to be found in a 40-page ethics report that was itself based on 28,000 pages of damning documents gathered by committee investigators.
In the end, it came down to a whine — the House slapping Rangel’s wrist rather than expelling him, and the congressman himself terming the outcome “an embarrassing and painful experience.”
Albeit not a career-ending one. This, again, speaks to the low standards of the House — and to Rangel’s, too. He could have just resigned, after all.
Now he’s back in the thick of it, a black icon running for a 23rd term in a district drawn specifically to reflect and enhance Hispanic electoral interests.
The race is a mélange of ethnic politicking and special-interest advantage-seeking — typical New York, in other words.
Espaillat brings an embarrassingly unremarkable, 18-year state legislative record to the table, and not much else — apart from his Dominican heritage, which he’s pushing hard.
Rangel’s response to this — “Just what the heck has he actually done besides saying he’s a Dominican?” — prompted Al Sharpton, no fan of the congressman, to marshal his dudgeon.
“The one that divides us has forfeited the right and ought not be in the race.”
Says Al Sharpton.
Rangel’s supporters, meanwhile, pretty much stick to this line: “Give the old warhorse one more term, and let him retire with dignity.”
Yet that’s what they said two years ago and, circumstances allowing, quite possibly what they’ll say two years hence. That is, it’s no argument at all.
Closer to the truth is that Rangel wants to leave solely on his own terms — after having personally picked his successor. But, by his conduct, he has forfeited that privilege.
The voters will do what they will do, but the sad fact is that Charlie Rangel surrendered his dignity a long time ago. He may get his way, but he doesn’t deserve to.