The House on Thursday rejected a Republican effort to censure Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel over his use of four rent-stabilized apartments in New York City.

The vote to table, and thus kill, the censure resolution was 254-138, with 34 members voting “present.”

Rangel dishonored himself and the House by accepting below-market rent on the apartments in Harlem, Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, charged Thursday in a formal request to censure the veteran Democrat.

Rangel should have reported the difference between the rent he paid and the rent charged to market-rate tenants as gifts on his required financial disclosure statements, Boehner said in a privileged censure resolution.

Boehner had the text of his resolution (H Res 1396) read from the podium but did not make a floor speech.

Moments earlier, the 19-term New York Democrat, alerted to Boehner’s intention, stood in the well and asked Boehner to rewrite his resolution to ask for an ethics committee probe rather than a censure, and volunteered to cosponsor the measure.

“Let me join in with you with the request,” Rangel said. “I would feel better if it goes to the ethics committee.

“Strike out discredit, strike out censure and put in there whatever the heck the ethics committee recommends,” he said.

Unmoved by Rangel’s request, Boehner introduced the resolution as written.

Rangel has four rent-stabilized apartments, including two combined units that are his primary residence, one studio down the hall and a campaign office.

That arrangement was first reported July 11 by the New York Times, and Rangel has said since then that he will be giving up the unit that houses his campaign office.

The newspaper said the landlord charges $3,894 per month but the market rate for those units would be $7,465 to $8,125 a month.

Rangel said he already has asked for an ethics investigation of that and his use of congressional stationery to seek meetings with potential patrons of educational center named for him.

As a matter of routine, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics panel is formally called, opens a preliminary inquiry on every complaint filed by a member of the House.

“I’ve never felt more secure that I’ve violated no law nor no spirit of the law,” he said. “There’s no one in this House that’s more thick-skinned than I in terms of playing politics. But playing with someone’s reputation ... I really think goes a step beyond that.”

“There’s no need even for mean-spirited people in the minority to say I’m a discredit to the United States Congress based on a newspaper story,” he said.

Privileged resolutions have precedence over most other floor activity, and the leaders of the majority and minority are allowed to bring them up at any time.