Rangel Should have been Expelled!

This guy should have been expelled!!....he's on TV now talking to reporters and he's not remorseful at all...makes it sound like just some bad judgement...if this was me, I'd be in jail.....It's time to get some accountability in congress!

House censures Rangel for ethics violations on 333-79 vote
By Susan Crabtree - 12/02/10 05:50 PM ET

The House has voted to censure Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), the once-powerful chairman of the Ways and Means panel, for a string of ethics violations.

In a vote of 333-79, the House handed down its steepest form of punishment short of expulsion to one of the most senior and beloved members of the House.

Rangel is only the 23rd lawmaker to be censured in the history of the House and the fifth in the last 100 years.

A somber Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) immediately handed down the punishment.

The vote divided the caucus on racial and regional lines, with a majority of the black caucus and New York delegation voting against censure, as well as a handful of lawmakers who worked alongside Rangel on Ways and Means before he was forced to give up the gavel earlier this year. Some conservative Blue Dog Democrats also voted against censure.

Before the censure vote, an amendment to reduce the punishment to a reprimand was set aside in a 146-267 vote. More Democrats, 143-105, supported reducing the punishment to a reprimand.

Several lawmakers spoke against censure before the vote, including Rep. Peter King (N.Y.). He was one of three Republicans who voted for a reprimand just before the censure vote. The other two were Reps. Don Young (Alaska) and Ron Paul (Texas).

A reprimand would have allowed Rangel to avoid the humiliation of having to stand in the well of the House while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reads the charges and committee’s findings for C-SPAN cameras and the world to see.

The vote deals a serious blow to Rangel’s legacy after a 40-year career in the House where the silver-haired elder statesmen was known for his jocularity, sartorial splendor and celebrated gravelly voice.

A weary and battle-worn Rangel, who spent more than two years fighting the charges, gave a last-ditch plea for leniency on the House floor before the debate over the censure began before a packed House gallery. He spent the days leading up to the vote lobbying colleagues for a reprimand rather than censure.



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In a brief statement on the House floor, Rangel apologized to the crowd of lawmakers “or putting you in this very awkward position today.”

Rangel admitted he has made mistakes and said rules are made to be enforced. But Rangel said his mistakes were not severe enough to warrant censure.

“I have made some serious mistakes,” Rangel said. “Senior members should act in a way as a model for new and less experienced members.”

But he pleaded with his colleagues: “If you are breaking new ground, I ask for fairness.”

Rangel argued “the humiliation of a censure” should not apply to him because the lead counsel on the ethics committee did not accuse him of corruption.

Rangel insisted that he was not corrupt and did not personally benefit from any of the activity. He also stressed that he was not convicted of a crime.

Rangel’s allies also insisted his mistakes did not merit a censure, in part because he did not benefit from his actions.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said the last four censures, leveled over the last century, were for “despicable conduct” or acts of “dishonesty.”

“These are not acts of dishonesty,” he said. “What Rangel did was reckless and sloppy.”

Before Thanksgiving an ethics adjudicatory committee convicted Rangel of 11 counts of violating ethics rules. The charges include: improperly using his office to solicit donations for a school of public policy in his name at the City College of New York (CCNY), using a rent-stabilized apartment in Harlem for his campaign office, failing to report more than $600,000 on his financial disclosure report, and failing to pay taxes on rental income from a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic.

In his written statement submitted by his attorneys in July, Rangel said the investigative subcommittee that brought charges against him “acted beyond the scope of its authority” and did not give him enough time to provide a defense, violating the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause. He called their findings “deeply flawed.”