The Democrats' very bad week just got worse.

First-term New York Rep. Eric Massa, the subject of a House ethics investigation for allegedly harassing a male staffer, announced Friday that he will resign.

Massa's plan to officially step down Monday comes just two days after longtime Rep. Charles Rangel, also under an ethics cloud, was forced to resign as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

In fact, a resignation announcement that Massa posted on his congressional website sits just above his statement lauding Rangel's decision to step down as committee chair as "the right thing...while he is under investigation from the Ethics Committee."

Rangel's departure from the chair was an embarrassment to him and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has stood behind the powerful African American leader as ethics questions long swirled about corporate-sponsored trips, rent-controlled apartments and delinquent taxes.

 

It's unclear how Massa's departure will affect Pelosi's drive to secure votes for health care overhaul legislation. A proponent of a single-payer system, he voted against the original House health care bill because, he said, it wasn't robust enough.

As of late Friday afternoon, the speaker had not commented on Massa's resignation plans.

The departure of Massa, a retired Navy commander who is married and the father of two children, adds to the growing narrative of Democratic scandal. And it undermines Pelosi's promise, upon becoming speaker in 2007, to "drain the swamp" after Republicans lost their majority - in part, because of scandals that plagued them.

The hullabaloo in the House also comes on the heels of revelations about the mounting problems of New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat who has been implicated in a burgeoning scandal that includes an attempt to hush up domestic abuse allegations against a top aide.

Ironically, Massa's seat could either be filled by a special election, or left open until the November mid-term election — it's up to the New York governor, at this moment, Paterson.

In his resignation statement, Massa acknowledges that a member of his staff "believed I had made statements that made him feel "uncomfortable"." He said he learned that he was the target of an ethics investigation when he "read it on the Internet."

However, House Majority Leader Steney Hoyer said in a statement earlier this week that during the week of Feb. 8th, he was notified by a member of Massa's staff that misconduct allegations had been made against the congressman.

Hoyer said his staff "immediately" informed Massa of what the majority leader had been told, and instructed the congressman's staff to bring the allegation to the attention to the House ethics committee.

In his statement, Hoyer said he did not know the veracity of the allegations.

Massa previously said that a cancer scare prompted his announcement earlier this week that he would not seek re-election.