WASHINGTON – House Democrats voted down an attempt Tuesday to remove Rep. Charles Rangel as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee during an ongoing ethics investigation.

The action came on the same day the House ethics committee voted to reauthorize a subcommittee of three Democrats and three Republicans to investigate Rangel, a New York Democrat who has served in Congress for nearly 40 years. The investigation began last year — at Rangel’s request — but the subcommittee needed reauthorization because a new Congress was sworn in last month.

The ethics committee is looking at Rangel’s failure to pay taxes on about $75,000 in rental income from a beach house he owns in the Dominican Republic and his use of three rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, including one for a campaign office. Also under scrutiny are letters Rangel wrote on congressional stationery looking to drum up donors for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York.

The resolution to remove Rangel as chairman said he “has dishonored himself and brought discredit to the House.” With no public debate, the House voted to table the resolution, effectively killing it, by a vote of 242-157.

Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, introduced the resolution, saying he knew it would be defeated by majority Democrats, but he wanted to “put sunlight on the issue.”

Rangel, who has said he broke no laws, requested the ethics committee investigation after the issues were first raised in the press last year. In a recent interview, he dismissed allegations of wrongdoing, calling them “a mosquito on an elephant’s back.” The Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction over tax policy.

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