Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel is expected to announce he will temporarily give up his gavel this morning, according to a Democratic aide.

With his ethics problems becoming an albatross around the necks of his party’s most politically vulnerable members, the venerable New York Democrat was pushed deep into a corner Tuesday night – meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a covey of aides in her ceremonial office in the southeast corner of the Capitol.

He insisted he that he is still chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee as he left Pelosi's office. But after a night of reflection, he is ready to relinquish power — at least temporarily.

Republicans were ready to a force a floor vote on whether he should be stripped of his chairmanship, and that’s a lose-lose proposition for Rangel. For him to win that kind of vote, some Democrats in tough swing districts – including those in his home state of New York – would have had to put themselves in further electoral jeopardy by backing him up.

Last week’s ethics committee judgment that Rangel violated House gift rules by accepting travel to the Caribbean appeared to be the last straw for many of his rank-and-file colleagues. Even as House Democratic leaders said over the weekend that they would await the outcome of the committee’s work on several other allegations against Rangel, so-called Frontline Democrats – those the party has identified as most vulnerable to defeat in November – began making their decisions to dump Rangel.