During the run-up to the 2002 Congressional election, I was traveling in South Georgia. One ad, run repeatedly, caught my attention, because it featured candid shots of New York Congressman Charles Rangel whose wavy silver locks brushed the collar of his custom shirt in a style that was more New Orleans than Savannah.

Although race was never mentioned, the voiceover proclaimed that if Democrats won control of the House of Representatives, voters could look forward to the ascension of this obviously dark-skinned man to the Ways and Means Committee chair.

Follow up:

Unthinkable!

“That’s my congressman!” I took to proclaiming every time I saw the ad in a public place. Sure enough, I’ve lived in Rangel’s district more than thirty years, and I’ve never felt better represented. Most of the time, I can count on Rangel to vote just the way I would, and that’s the way most of his constituents feel. The Upper West Side and Harlem represent some of the nation’s most liberal voters.

Charlie, as he’s widely known, is whip-smart, well-informed, witty and charming, which I think is why we voters have been so reluctant to insist that he retire. His only substantive challenge in recent years came from Adam Clayton Powell, IV., son of the ethically-challenged man whom Rangel defeated, and Rangel still kept 58% of the Democratic vote.

Yet, the reports of lapses in Rangel’s business ethics just keep coming. As he stepped aside from the Ways and Means chair last week, he did so in response to a rebuke from the House Ethics Committee about trips he took to the Caribbean at the expense of corporations that come before him—Verizon, Alltel, Pfizer.

While he may not have known about the sponsor involvement, his aides did, and knowing that he is under scrutiny for more serious charges (failing to report half a million dollars in assets and not paying taxes on income from a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic among them) why did he keep staff who could not protect him?

“An American tragedy,” is how Mark Shields described the trajectory of Rangel’s career on the PBS News Hour Friday night, and I have to agree.

It will be a further tragedy if Rangel is remembered only for his financial misdeals. If he has been less than financially scrupulous, the same cannot be said of his conscience when it comes to unjust treatment of his fellow human beings.

Shields mentioned the Bronze Star (he saved forty men from behind enemy lines) and Purple Heart that Rangel earned in Korea before he even finished high school, how he completed college on the GI bill and won a full scholarship to law school.

My memory is still vivid about Rangel’s vote against the Iraq war in 2003. The period after the attacks on the Twin Towers leading to the attack on Baghdad was one of the scariest in this New Yorker’s life; the government used 9/11 to justify a war on a country that had no connection to the attacks and dissent was barely tolerated. Rangel stood strong against that war, while both New York’s senators caved to pressure from the Bush administration and voted for it.

Just before the war began, I bumped into the congressman near Macy’s during a protest and shook his hand. A few other public figures took part, but I think Rangel was the only one in office, and he had more to lose. In order the press his point, he advocated a return to the military draft because he believed the war’s supporters would be less eager to promote conflict if they thought young people in their own communities would have to fight. This proved wildly unpopular with Republicans and with a lot of Democrats.

Even before his election to Congress, Rangel showed up when there was lots at stake. He took part in the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, traveling to Alabama for what he thought would be a quick appearance and staying for four days.

During his early days in Congress while on the House Judiciary Committee, Rangel’s astute questions during the Watergate hearings that led to President Nixon’s resignation were notable, as were his questions about the massacre that occurred under the watch of his former mentor Nelson Rockefeller at the Attica prison upstate.

Rangel’s fervor for human rights led him to protest apartheid in front of the South African consulate in New York in the 1980s for which he was arrested. He proposed successful legislation to end tax breaks for companies doing business with South Africa. Nelson Mandela himself thanked Rangel for the pressure it brought to end aparatheid.

While the $174,000 most representatives earn (in 2010) seems like a fortune to most people who vote for them, once in Congress, people rub shoulders with donors, lobbyists and fellow legislators whose wealth makes those salaries look like chump change. Now with the Supreme Court encouraging corporations to make campaign donations, I expect that we’ll see more, not fewer, perks like Rangel’s plane fare to the Caribbean. Maybe they’ll even become legal again.

I can no longer pretend that Rangel’s transgressions were mere slips of attention, and I’m glad he stepped aside from his committee chairmanship. I hope he won't run for re-election, but I’m hoping he’ll stick around for the vote on health care. It would be a shame to disenfranchise the people who live in New York’s 15th Congressional District, because many of them desperately need the health insurance (and health care) that the legislation was designed to assist.

Down in South Georgia, I suppose there’ll be rejoicing at Rangel’s demise, but uptown in Manhattan, there’s little to celebrate.