Rangel Evicts Himself From Apartment

Rep. Charles Rangel, (D-NY) has chosen to give up one of the four rent stabilized apartments that came to light after the New York Times came upon that curious situation. Rangel had acquired the apartments over a period of years, and no one apparently noticed that it was illegal to use one of the apartments as an office.

At a time when affordable housing in New York City is hard to come by, Rangel had four units (two of which were a combined unit that were rented in that condition). He had added a third unit and then the fourth as an office.

It is the one that Rangel uses as a campaign office that he's giving up. Nice.

Of course, it's against the rent stabilization guidelines to use the apartment in that manner. A watchdog group is pushing the case against Rangel:

Rangel's announcement that he would move out of one of his Lenox Terrace apartments, which he was using as a campaign office, came as a Washington-area watchdog organization filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission.

A moving truck may not be enough, though, to protect Rangel from the legal repercussions of his longtime discount, according to Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, which filed the complaint.

State and local regulations require tenants of the discounted apartments to use them as their primary residences.

The center's complaint alleges that Rangel's years of low rent constituted an illegal corporate campaign contribution from the building owner, the Olnick Organization.

Said Boehm, "His case doesn't look that good. It went on for more than a decade, it involved thousands and thousands of dollars, and he had every reason to know it was improper."

I also suspect that his constituents will give him a pass on this and the issue will quickly fade, regardless of the outcome of the complaint.