For Rangel, one busy week ahead in September

By Felicia Sonmez
Good things don't always come in threes, if Rep. Charlie Rangel's (D-N.Y.) September schedule is anything to go by.

Rangel, the embattled former Ways and Means chairman who was found yesterday by a House subcommittee to have violated congressional ethics rules, is expected to stand trial beginning the week of Sept. 13.

On Sept. 14, Rangel faces a primary against state Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV (D) (whose father, the late Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Rangel defeated to win his seat in 1970).

And on Sept. 15, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation kicks off its annual legislative conference, its biggest event of the year. (Rangel was a founding member of the CBC, and the event will keep the spotlight on the congressman's scandal less than two months before the November midterms, to the likely chagrin of national Democrats.)