Time to Close the Book on Washington Pages?

In the wake of the Foley scandal, some House members are calling for the suspension, if not the end, of Congress' venerable study program

If former Speaker Tip O'Neill still led the House of Representatives today, the Congressional page program might be shut down once and for all. In 1983, he threatened to do just that in the wake of another scandal involving a Congressman and a teenage page. At the time, the House was investigating allegations that two Congressmen had sexual relations with teenage pages. Representatives Daniel Crane, an Illinois Republican, and Gerry Studds, a Democrat from Massachusetts, were eventually censured for having had sex with a female page and male page respectively.

The scandal led to changes in the page program — including raising the age of pages from 14 to 16, housing the pages in a supervised dormitory, and establishing a page board to oversee the program. "I think we have everything under control now," O'Neill was quoted in the New York Times. "I don't think we ought to abolish the system. But I will say this: One more scandal and bam! The page system is through."

At least some members are coming around to the view he might be right. Republican representatives Ray LaHood of Illinois, Jon Porter of Nevada and Kay Granger of Texas are all calling for an evaluation of the page program, which could mean its ignominous end after 177 years.

"This is a flawed program," LaHood told TIME. "The fact that a member of Congress is sending e-mails to a page and that he can get away with it shows that obviously there are problems."

On Sunday, LaHood e-mailed House Speaker Dennis Hastert and recommended that the page program be temporarily suspended until an outside team could evaluate its security protocol. He reiterated the recommendation in a conference call with Has> tert on Monday. Hastert, busy trying to save his own job, has not yet responded to the recommendation, but both Porter and Granger have backed it.

One problem is that the approximately 70 House pages are also in school. When Congress is in session during the school year, the pages attend private, junior-level classes each morning at the Library of Congress. In order not to disrupt their studies, Porter's chief of staff Mike Hesse suggested the pages' legislative duty be suspended while they finish up the semester at the Library of Congress.

No changes for the House page program have yet been announced, though an investigation is being launched, according to Salley Collins, press secretary for the Committee on House Administration, which oversees the Office of the Clerk that runs the House page program. "It is the Committee's intention to work with the Office of the Clerk, the Page Board director and Congress to step back and reevaluate, examine the program and make any necessary changes," Collins said. In the meantime, the Office of the Clerk has established a toll-free hotline for current or former pages — and their parents — to report any tips related to Mark Foley or to the page program. The hotline is Hastert's own doing. "As the Speaker, I take responsibility for everything in the building," he said in a statement Thursday morning. "The buck stops here. The safety and security of the students in the Page program is imperative."

The House's page program is separate from the Senate's program. Approximately 30 pages are a part of that program, which is run by the Sergeant of Arms Office in the Senate. Calls inquiring possible changes to the Senate page program were not returned.

Both page programs trace their roots to 1829, when Senator Daniel Webster appointed a 9-year-old boy to be his personal gopher. Since then thousands of young men — and eventually young women — have come to Washington to run errands for the members of Congress. Like many jobs in Washington, getting hired as a page often means having the right political connections. The work is also grueling, especially during the school year when pages start class at 6:45 a.m. and can stay on the House or Senate floor late into the night.

Many pages have only fond memories of their experiences on Capitol Hill. Megan Smith recalls how much closer she got to representatives as a House page than later as a Legislative aide. "The experience was much different as a page — we were sitting on the House floor for six or seven hours a day," says Smith, 23, who was a page from 1999-2000.

Yet it's exactly that intimacy with congressmen that worries LaHood. "I think this an antiquated program — it's been over 100 years and needs a total evaluation for the sake of the kids," he said. "Having 15 and 16-year-old young men and women come to Washington, work on the House floor, and work in an environment where members of Congress if they want to can prey on them is not a healthy situation."

Of course, Foley has so far been linked via e-mails and instant messages only to former pages, not to teenagers who were in the program at the time. Which means that even if the page program were terminated immediately, the potential for problems will not disappear. But it will prove that former Speaker O'Neill was more foresightful than he knew.

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