The House ethics committee has been engaged in Charlie Rangel-related investigations since Sept. 24, 2008 for multiple allegations -- including tax-related issues. Yet the New York congressman did not step down from the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee until this week after the panel admonished him for accepting corporate-paid travel, which, incidentally, was not part of its original investigations. Those are still ongoing, nearly 18 months later.

Watchdog groups believe the investigations are a show and fail to hold members of Congress truly accountable for their transgressions. As we wrote a couple of months ago, groups like the Sunlight Foundation and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington see little change in the national legislature's ability to police itself.

"The committee is nonpartisan, and in being nonpartisan they do not like to go after members of either party," CREW's Melanie Sloan told me in December.

Sunlight did its own investigation into Rangel more than a year ago and found more financial disclosure issues.

We're still waiting to hear about the first four pieces of the committee's investigation into Rangel: 1) using official resources for fundraising letters sent to prospective donors to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York; 2) several apartments Rangel leased in Harlem; 3) how he paid for a condo at the Punta Cana Yacht Club in the Dominican Republican and whether he properly disclosed the property; 4) the storing of his vehicle in the House parking garage.

He may be out of the Ways & Means chairmanship, but the ethics committee's slow Rangel Tango continues.

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