Charlie Rangel: Victim of Vanity

Of the seven deadly sins, pride is often deemed the worst, and the root of the other six. For politicians, who are expert at violating many of the seven at once, pride is also the most common and quite often the deadliest. Just ask Charlie Rangel. 

Rangel is facing a potential House Ethics Committee investigation of his ties to Nabors Industries. According to an outstanding investigative article in Tuesday's New York Times, Rangel last year reversed his longstanding opposition to eliminating the loophole that allowed Nabors and other companies to shirk paying taxes by legally incorporating offshore despite functionally being headquartered in the US. 

Why the change of heart? It appears that Nabors' CEO, Eugene Isenberg, pledged $1 million to a school of public service that City College of New York plans to name in Rangel's honor. In fact, on the morning that a bill eliminating the loophole was scheduled to be marked up for a floor vote from the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax policy and is chaired by Rangel, the New York Democrat had breakfast with Isenberg to discuss his support for the CCNY project and then met with a Nabors lobbyist to talk about the bill. The legislation, despite having cleared the Senate by a 97-3 vote, never made it out of committee in the House, and Nabors continues to evade paying US taxes. 

Rangel meekly offers to the Times that he doesn't remember meeting with the Nabors lobbyist and that he didn't know Isenberg had made the $1 million pledge. That's almost as bad as his claims back in September that he couldn't get to the bottom of how much tax he owed on a Dominican villa because he couldn't understand Spanish. 

Ahhhh, vanity. Rangel fancies himself an historical figure, and certainly, as one of the most senior African-Americans in Congressional history, he is. The CCNY school is in his home district of Harlem, where he occupies a grand residence comprised of four rent-stabilized apartments obtained in a sweetheart deal with a politically connected real-estate developer. He even used one of the apartments as a campaign office, in violation of state rules. The Rangel School of Public Service would be the capstone of his legacy. If only people would fund it. 

Rangel's recent foibles show a certain, shall we say, flexible attitude toward doing right by his constituents and the other Americans at whose pleasure he serves. Will a rival Democrat, fueled by ambition — a not-quite-deadly, yet dangerous trait — decide to challenge him next November? I certainly hope so. The people of Harlem deserve better.