Representative's influence misused for Rangel Center

The Democratic majority in Congress became the majority partly because its members pledged, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi memorably put it, to "drain the swamp" of the corruption that kept seeping into the latter years of GOP dominance on Capitol Hill. Now it's time for the self-avowed reformers to focus on one of their most powerful leaders.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee, has drawn widespread criticism following a series of reports by The Washington Post about his efforts to raise funds for an academic center at the City College of New York.

According to The Post, the 19-term lawmaker from Harlem has been sending letters on congressional stationery to various people, including individuals who have business before his committee, to ask them to meet with him to talk about the center.

The purpose of the letters is clear: to drum up funding for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service, or as GOP wags have aptly dubbed it "The Monument to Me."

Rangel denies he's done anything wrong and initially bristled at criticism. In his 38 years in office, he said, "I don't think there has ever been any challenge, real or unreal, to my integrity as it relates to fundraising."

Now, however, the congressman has joined the chorus of people calling for an inquiry by the House ethics committee into his activities. In addition to the letters, the probe also should address Rangel's wrangling of $1.9 million in budget earmarks and almost $700,000 in Housing and Urban Development grants for the project.

Rangel says the Harlem-based center, which would house his papers, would seek to bolster racial diversity in public administration positions. That's a worthy goal. But he should have left the fundraising to others rather than risk creating the appearance, "real or unreal," that donors stood to gain from submitting to his appeal for money.