Charlie Rangel will be Censured

Guilty as Charged!!

(Yahoo.com) The House ethics committee on Thursday recommended censure for longtime Rep. Charles Rangel, suggesting that the New York Democrat suffer the embarrassment of standing before his colleagues while receiving an oral rebuke by the speaker for financial and fundraising misconduct.

Censure is the most serious congressional discipline short of expulsion. The House, which could change the recommended discipline by making it more serious or less serious, probably will consider the recommendation after Thanksgiving.

The ethics committee voted 9-1 to recommend censure and that Rangel pay any taxes he owes on income from a vacation villa in the Dominican Republic. The five Democrats and five Republicans on the panel deliberated for about three hours behind closed doors.

House ethics panel convicts Rep. Rangel on 11 counts of rule violations

(The Hill)Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), once one of the most powerful members of the House, was convicted Tuesday on 11 counts of violating ethics rules and now faces punishment.

The full ethics panel will now convene a sanctions hearing to recommend a punishment, which ethics experts say will most likely be a reprimand or formal censure.

Serious sanctions — including formal reprimand, censure or expulsion — require a vote on the House floor. Expulsion requires a two-thirds vote, while a reprimand, to which Rangel refused to agree in July, or a censure would need only a simple majority. The ethics panel could also impose a fine and deny some of Rangel’s House privileges.

Either reprimand or formal censure carries no immediate, tangible consequence for Rangel, who easily won reelection this month, but the sweeping guilty verdict delivers a damaging blow to his reputation and 40-year political legacy.

Finally, a Democrat led committee took down an 80 year old Washington elite. I get giddy when a Democrat eats one of their own.