By Shayna Jacobs and Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo Reporter/Producers
HARLEM — State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV’s legal troubles have not sidetracked his plans to replace Rep. Charlie Rangel in the Congressional seat his father once occupied — regardless of the outcome of his upcoming DWI trial.
On Monday, the start date for his trial on 2008 drunken-driving charges was adjourned until Nov. 30. Powell then headed to a groundbreaking ceremony for a Hunter College building in his state assembly district, where he talked to DNAinfo.
"Do I look worried?" Powell said. "If I was worried, I would have taken the plea a long time ago."
The assemblyman said the trial would not affect his possible candidacy for U.S. Congress next year.
Instead, he said his decision would likely rest on whether or not the 79-year-old incumbent Rangel remains in the race.
"To be honest with you, I'm not looking at running against Rangel," Powell said. "I honestly don't know if he's going to be there next year."
Powell is betting on the possibility that either Rangel's continuing tax problems or his age could force him to resign his seat, even as the congressman's office remains emphatic that he will be in the race in 2010.
"It's no secret I want to represent this community in Congress," said Powell, who calls his relationship with Rangel cordial, despite running against the popular representative in 1994.
In 2004, Powell said he also raised funds to compete against Rangel, but decided against it.
“I just thought it was too risky,” the assemblyman said. “Any time I run for Congress I have to leave the state Assembly. At that time Rangel was still on the way up.”
These days, Powell has a different view. He says that Rangel’s star is waning and he thinks that it's time for change.
In 1970, Rangel wrested Harlem’s Congressional seat from Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Powell IV’s father and the first African-American member of Congress from New York.
Rangel’s run in politics is eerily reminiscent of the elder Powell’s tenure. Both men held office for more than 20 years (Rangel has 39 years under his belt, the elder Powell had 26), both are known for their outsized personalities and both are tainted by nearly career-endings scandal.
The 79-year-old Rangel is up against an inquiry by a House ethics panel that nearly stripped him of his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means committee. The elder Powell lost leadership of the prestigious Education and Labor Committee near the end of his last term and was temporarily removed from his House seat during an investigation into his alleged misappropriation of committee funds.
Like his father and like Rangel, the younger Powell is no stranger to trouble. In addition to the pending DWI charge, in 2004 — the same year he backed out of the race against Rangel — he was accused of raping two women. In both instances, the allegations were dropped.
Powell has been declining a jail-free plea deal since last year when Manhattan prosecutors made the offer, said his attorney Stacey Richman.
If the assemblyman changes his mind and takes the deal, he will face a 90-day license suspension, a monetary fine and will have to take classes to help prevent drunken driving.
As of Monday, Powell remained intent on seeing his DWI charges to trial and restoring the Powell family name to Harlem's Congressional District 15 seat.
"Honestly, I don't think [Rangel] is going to run next year," Powell said. "All I know is change is coming."
