As a young boy living in Harlem, young Charlie Rangel always had a job of one kind or another, but none better than working behind the counter at Model’s Drug Store on the corner of 133rd Street and Lennox Avenue.

It was one of those typical luncheonette/pharmacy combos run by a guy named Doc. Things never got any more fun at Model’s than when some desperate soul would rush in seeking treatment for a black eye or some other malady he or she had come down with overnight. And Model’s was the place to go if you needed fixing.

Doc maintained a big jar of leeches, and for a quarter the future chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee would reach into the jar, pick up one of the critters, coax the patient/victim to put his head just a little bit closer, then “Bingo! I’d watch that leech suck up that bad blood, puff, puff, puff up, then fall down.”  

Just one of the colorful stories Rangel tells in his autobiography, And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since, documenting his colorful career and life, including his scrape with death during the Korean War.

I was thinking of that leech story last week as Rangel entered the House Radio and Television Gallery to respond to a Washington Post story that suggested the congressman, in possible violation of House rules, used his congressional letterhead to try and shake down big corporate cash for a public policy center at the City College of New York (CCNY).

It doesn’t help matters that the project in question is the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service and that some of the shakees have official business before the Ways and Means Committee.

For whatever reason, there seem to be fewer and fewer truly colorful “characters” on Capitol Hill these days, so any Rangel news conference is normally well worth the time spent, no matter the topic.

But even by Rangel standards, last Thursday’s event was a bona fide, center-ring performance, with the 78-year-old chairman chastising the paper (“I’m going to see how much damn ink The Washington Post has”) and personally singling out reporter Christopher Lee, who wrote the original article: “Rangel’s Pet Cause Bears His Own Name — Firms With Business Before Panel Solicited.”

Perhaps remembering his early days of leeches and bloodletting, Rangel, who claims he had done nothing improper, turned the tables and used the opportunity to announce that he would ask the Committee on Official Standards (ethics committee) to investigate the matter so that other members of Congress would know precisely what the rules are:

“What I’m doing now to a large part is for other members. I mean, I don’t really think The Washington Post story on this is going to do anything to my political career. But I do believe if members think that writing letters like this and encouraging people to meet with not-for-profits — if they think that ‘Remember what happened to Rangel,’ I want them to say, ‘Yes, Rangel whipped their butts too, didn’t he?’ ”

If an investigation is initiated, it is likely to focus on whether the letters sent (on official congressional letterhead), although not directly asking for funds, were still a violation of House rules because they requested personal meetings (Rangel, potential donors and representatives of CCNY) where funding of the center would clearly be discussed.

House Republicans may not have a jar full of leeches, but they also know a thing or two about bloodletting. They have hopped on Rangel’s “Monument to Me” to remind all who will listen that Nancy Pelosi won the Speakership by promising to “drain the swamp” following several high-profile GOP ethical failures during the last Congress.

The GOP says the Democrats are now “sinking” in the very swamp they claim they are draining.
If the ethics panel does not find that the Rangel letters technically violated the “solicitation of funds” rules, it could very easily find a violation of the “spirit” of the rules.

But no matter what happens (if anything), the panel will probably not say much about what is legal on Capitol Hill — directing earmarks and using one’s office to navigate the federal grant process (Rangel did both) to fund pet projects back home, whether they carry a member’s name or not.

On a more basic level, if a powerful committee chairman has a “special project” — a center, a favorite charity, a golf tournament, whatever — the smart, big-money crowd looking to ingratiate themselves will figure ways to “participate,” whether congressional letterhead is used or not, whether the congressman’s name is carved in stone over the doorway or not.

You can reach Jim Mills at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it