House Overhauls Page
Program
Responding To Foley
Scandal, House Votes
To Provide Better
Protection For Pages
By AP from
CBSNews.com on the Web, January 19, 2007
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(Getty Images/Richard Patterson)
U.S.
Republican Congressman Mark Foley of Florida speaks at a press
conference. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned his seat last
September after news accounts revealed his questionable contacts
with former teen pages. |
Washington -- The House voted
Friday to overhaul the board that supervises its congressional page program,
seeking to close the book on a sordid e-mail and sex scandal that sullied its
reputation and became a Campaign 2006 issue.
Specifically, lawmakers voted 416-0 to provide that both parties have equal say
in overseeing the program, as old as the institution itself.
This is all a reaction to the scandal last year in which Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla.,
resigned after sending sexually explicit e-mails to some of the teenage pages,
CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss reports. The ethics committee then found
Republican leaders knew about the misconduct and failed to do anything about it.
Pages are high school students who learn about Congress while running errands
and attending a congressionally-run school
The new, eight-member board will include an equal number of lawmakers from each
party and include a former page and the parent of a current or former page.
The board also would have to meet regularly.
Foley resigned his seat last September after news accounts revealed how he
became acquainted with male pages while they worked in Congress, and then sent
them the improper messages after they left — including sexually explicit instant
messages.
The sponsors of the resolution are Reps. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., and Shelley Moore
Capito, R-W.Va., two page board members who were never informed by the board's
past chairman, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., of Foley's questionable e-mails to a
former page until the lawmaker resigned last Sept. 29.
Shimkus had learned of Foley's e-mails in November 2005. While he went with the
House clerk to confront Foley, Shimkus never convened a page board meeting and
Foley failed to stop his messages to male former pages.
"The board must not only be free of partisanship, but must function so all of
the members have access" to allegations of misconduct, said Rep. Juanita
Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., chairman of the Committee on House Administration.
Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., senior Republican on the committee, said the
failure to convene the page board to deal with Foley "made the problem even
worse."
The Kildee-Capito resolution expands the board membership to eight, including
the former page and the parent. There also would be four House members —
equally divided by party — as well as the clerk of the House and the
sergeant-at-arms.
The previous board had five members: three lawmakers — two from the
majority — plus the clerk and sergeant-at-arms.
"We look forward to operating the page program in an effective manner," Kildee
said. The new board, he added, will ensure "the well-being of the young
people who serve this House as pages."
Capito said the equal representation "takes it out of the political realm.
There's no way there should be a partisan upper hand when talking about the
governance of the page board."
She said she recalled only two or three meetings since joining the board in
March 2005. Having a parent and former page gives the board "another set
of eyes and ears" if a problem develops, she added.
The House ethics committee, in its report on the Foley case, said that former
House chief clerk Jeff Trandahl warned Shimkus that Foley was a "ticking time
bomb" who had been confronted repeatedly about his conduct.
The warning came in November 2005. The board chairman confronted Foley
with Trandahl and told him to stop sending e-mails to a former Louisiana page.
When Foley resigned, Shimkus still had not convened the page board.
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