s reported Sunday that embattled Harlem Democrat Charles Rangel said that he signed a plea deal on ethics charges but that Republicans pushed for a trial. The New York city Congressman faces 13 ethics violations, but said last week that he wouldn't settle to make others in Congress "comfortable."
The House Ethics Committee has also in the past week revealed that Los Angeles area Democrat Maxine Waters will soon be charged with a still unannounced set of ethics violations, , following a nine-month investigation into allegations that she had improper communications with executives from OneUnited Bank, a Massachusetts-based institution that her husband owned stock in and had once served on the board of directors, as the bank sought bailout funds.
Tampa's Kathy Castor is one of the five Democrats on the ten member House Ethics Committee. Although she could not comment about anything to do with Rangel or Waters, she told CL yesterday after speaking at the Metropolitan Community Church in Seminole Heights that nobody should accuse the committee, or Democrats of not aiming for highest ethical standards, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi said would be the case when Democrats took over the House in 2006.
"When you look at the entire record, starting in 2007 when my class was sworn into the Congress, I was the first freshman to speak on the floor of the House and that was on the new ethics standards. So there are no more high flying trips paid for by private lobbyists; we have to report earmarks on our website and disclose them so you don't have the situation like the 'Bridge to Nowhere' that was just slipped into the bill. There's all sorts of commitment to transparency and open government. We also adopted the Office of Congressional Ethics, so anyone on the outside can make a complaint. That had been closed off before."
Several liberal commentators have observed the fact that going into a tough election year, Democrats may be unfairly targeting two high profile black members of Congress to prove that they are being tough on their own.
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2010.