WASHINGTON – When Republican congressmen hooked up for a conference call this week to discuss the political crisis over former Rep. Mark Foley’s salacious e-mails to former pages, the most heated discussion was not over House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s handling of the matter but over the future of the congressional page program.
A few congressmen, notably Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., have suggested that the program should be scrapped. “Send the pages home,” he said, noting at one point that it’s “pretty obvious” lawmakers can’t be trusted around them.
But after Congress scrubs off the latest tarnish, the venerable program is likely to persevere. For senators and congressmen, it’s a much-cherished perk that they can bestow on the children of constituents. For former pages, who ardently defend the program, it’s an inspirational opportunity to see politicians at work in the cloakrooms of power.
“For every page failed by a congressman, there is a page who turned out to be a congressman,” Kevin O’Connor, a Republican page in the summer of 2003, wrote. “I left the page program with a broadened perspective, a wildly diverse array of friends and no regrets.”
There are currently 63 House pages and 30 Senate pages, mostly 16-year-olds. They run errands for Congress – answering phones, taking messages, delivering documents – often late into the night, when they return to secured dorms.
Foley’s sexually vulgar electronic messages have recalled the program’s lowest point, in 1983, when two House members were censured for sexual relationships with pages. A three-member board was then set up to oversee the program, but only one member was told about Foley’s messages.
Hastert has so far rebuffed calls to suspend the program. Instead, he said Thursday he is looking “for a person of high caliber to advise us.” He also set up a tip line to report inappropriate behavior toward pages.
“It’s just as good a program now as it was for me in 1938,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a former page who was first elected in 1955 and is now the most-senior member of Congress. “Asking if we should suspend the page program is the wrong question. We should be asking what has happened to Congress that would bring us to even consider ending this terrific opportunity for talented teenagers.”
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