New York City seems to be ensnared in a love affair of sorts with scandal-ridden politicians.
Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel was censured from the House in 2010 for tax evasion, but managed to easily retain his seat in the last two elections. And it seems that his congressional seat is still too comfortable for the corrupt politician to give up anytime soon. In fact, the congressman plans to run for yet another term in 2014, saying it’s all about what the “community decides.”
As chair of the powerful House Ways and Means committee, Rangel was just as bad at paying his taxes as he was at writing tax laws. In a vote of 333-79, a House ethics panel convicted Rangel of 11 counts of violating ethics rules, including neglecting to pay taxes on property in the Dominican Republic and failure to report more than $600,000. Yet, Rangel was reelected amidst the scandal with a whopping 81 percent of the vote, and 75 percent of the vote in his 2012 reelection bid.
This time around, Rangel failed to file a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission and didn’t raise a significant amount of money during the first quarter of 2013. Speculation arose that the third-longest serving member of the House might finally retire.
Alas, the 83-year-old is still going strong and ready to take on the next scandal in his political career–for the community, of course.
“At this time I intend to run for reelection,” Rangel told the New York Daily News.
While appearing on MSNBC’s Jansing & Co. show Wednesday morning, Rangel went so far as to argue that politicians (like himself) shouldn’t be the only ones held accountable for their shady decisions and cheating scandals. The American people are also to blame for Congress’ disapproval rating sinking to the all-time low of 12 percent, he said.
“The public could really improve those numbers,” he said. “It’s totally embarrassing, but worse than the Congress is the silence of people that could make a difference.”
He seemed unfazed by the low approval rating, saying that most Americans don’t know who their member of Congress is, which makes it easy for bad public servants to stay in Washington.
“You can bet your life reelection means a lot to people down here in the nation’s capital,” Rangel added.
Considering that Rangel holds one of the most Democratic congressional seats in America, he’s all but certain to hold on to his seat yet again, because, like Rangel said on MSNBC, many of his constituents don’t know or care about his tenure in Congress. Unfortunately, New York isn’t likely to cast off its embarrassing lot of cheating politicians any time soon.
