WASHINGTON — Just about everyone likes Charlie Rangel.
Republicans pump his hand, Democrats put their arms around his shoulders and women of all political persuasions give him pecks on the cheek.
Spend some time with the 80-year-old congressman from New York City who has been striding the Capitol’s halls for four decades on behalf of residents of Harlem and there’s little evidence he has become someone to avoid because of an ethics cloud expected to darken in days to come.
Colleagues in both parties still gravitate to the gravelly voiced, outgoing, backslapping Rangel four months after fellow Democrats persuaded — and Republicans hounded — him to relinquish one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
“Amiga,’’ he shouts in the Capitol subway to Cuban-born, Florida Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
“Amigo,’’ she belts out in return.
“Hey Ritchie,’’ Rangel booms as he passes Representative Richard Neal, the Democrat from Springfield, Mass., who is seen by many as a Ways and Means chairman in the future.
Behind the scenes, it’s a different story. A few Democrats have returned money that Rangel raised for them. His influence is sapped.
His wife, Alma, warns him not to be naive about the glad-handing.
“You know,’’ she tells him, “they’re putting you on.’’
How did it come to this?
Rangel follows in a trend of Ways and Means chairmen such as Democratic Representatives Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois and Wilbur Mills of Arkansas who waited decades to become congressional titans, then lost that stature through ethical lapses.
“Some members are old school,’’ said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel and a defense lawyer for many politicians in trouble. “As they rise in seniority . . . they think less about [rules] changes that occur under their nose.’’
Rangel lost his post because his conduct gave Republicans an ethics issue ripe for exploitation, just as Democrats in 2006 and 2008 successfully seized on GOP ethical lapses.
Nervous about losing House seats this year, Democrats persuaded Rangel to step down after the House ethics committee concluded in February in a relatively minor case that Rangel violated the chamber’s rules on gifts. The committee said Rangel should have known that corporate money paid for two trips to Caribbean conferences. Rangel insists he didn’t know.
