House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel , D-N.Y., has used campaign funds to pay $1,540 in fines from parking tickets in the District of Columbia in the last two years, according to federal campaign finance records and his office.

Rangel’s campaign committee and his “leadership” political action committee have combined to make 14 separate payments to the D.C. treasurer for “automobile expenses” since March 16, 2007, and a Rangel spokesman confirmed that campaign aides believe they were for tickets.

One $30 ticket from Dec. 9 is still outstanding, according to a search on the Web site of the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles of the “NYREP15” vanity plate affixed to the congressman’s PT Cruiser.

Overall, Rangel’s committees have contributed $2,035 to the parking-ticket coffers of the D.C. Treasury since 2001.

It is not illegal to use campaign funds to pay parking fines if they were incurred during campaign activities or in relation to Rangel’s position as an officeholder.

Rangel, a prolific fundraiser and a senior member of Congress, has ample reason to attend political and official events in the nation’s capital when the House is in session, meaning that the tickets could easily have come in the course of normal business.

His spokesman, Emile Milne, told CQ Politics that Rangel is in compliance with the laws overseen by the Federal Election Commission but could not offer details on each of the tickets.

Regardless of any potential legal issues, the congressman is paying parking tickets with other people’s money. The fines are the latest in a series of revelations about the Ways and Means chairman’s activities that could cause him ethical, political and public relations headaches.

The House ethics committee is already investigating allegations regarding Rangel’s four rent-controlled apartments in New York, failure to pay taxes on rental income from property in the Caribbean, and the use of official letterhead to woo donations to a public policy school named for him.

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