The U.S. House of Representatives ethics panel on Monday formally
accused Democratic lawmaker Maxine Waters of three counts of breaking
House rules for assisting a bank with ties to her husband get help from
the federal government.

Waters, a 10-term California representative, has denied the charges in
the case that poses another potentially embarrassing blow to Democrats
fighting to keep their House majority in the November 2 congressional
elections.

The Waters case comes on the heels of 13 ethics panel charges against Representative Charles Rangel,
a New York Democrat who had served as chairman of the tax-writing Ways
and Means Committee. Rangel’s trial is expected to begin in September.

The case against Waters, who heads the House Financial Services Housing
and Community Opportunity subcommittee, centers on whether she helped
the bank in which her husband was a stockholder get special access to
top Treasury officials.

The ethics panel said Waters violated a ban on lawmakers using improper
influence for personal gain and a prohibition on government workers
accepting special favors for themselves or family members that could be
seen as influencing official actions.

It also accused her of violating the rule that lawmakers’ conduct must reflect creditably on the House.

The charges were first announced on August 2 but not made public until
Monday, after Waters waived her right to keep them secret.

It is unclear when the Waters case would go to public trial; she has asked for it to take place before the November elections.

INTENSE PRESSURE

Waters and Rangel
are under intense pressure from fellow Democrats to make a deal to
avoid the spectacle of public trials, though that appears unlikely.

Both Rangel and Waters are members of the Congressional Black Caucus,
making the cases highly sensitive as Democrats are working to get a big
voter turnout by black Americans, one of their traditional
constituencies.

Rangel agreed to a tentative plea arrangement last month, a
congressional source said at the time, but Republicans did not sound
interested. On July 29 Republican Representative Michael McCaul said
Rangel had a chance to negotiate but, “We are now in the trial phase.”

In the Waters case, the ethics panel last week made public an August
2009 report from an outside body that recommended the investigation.

It alleged that Waters helped a top official at minority-owned OneUnited
Bank obtain a meeting with Treasury officials just after then-Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson seized mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008. Neither Paulson nor Waters participated in the meeting.

The official, Robert Cooper, also served at the time as chairman-elect
of the National Bankers Association, an industry group that represents
103 banks owned by minorities and women.

Waters’ husband owned stock in the privately held OneUnited Bank and had earlier served on the board.

OneUnited, which contended it lost investments because of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
takeovers, wanted $50 million as compensation for earlier government
statements that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were financially sound. The
bank later received $12 million in federal bailout funds.