House tightens oversight of pages

[n2doc]

House tightens oversight of pages
By Johanna Neuman, Times Staff Writer
9:32 AM PST, January 19, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Four months after a congressional page scandal rocked Capitol Hill and dashed Republicans' hopes for holding their majorities in Congress, the House voted unanimously today to require regular meetings of an expanded board that oversees the teenage interns.

The House voted 416-0 to recompose the board with three congressional members from each party, a parent and a former page. The new eight member board would be responsible for overseeing 70 pages — usually 16-year-olds who apply for a highly competitive program to spend a year running errands for members of Congress and their staffs, while attending school in the nation's capital.

Sexually explicit e-mails from Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to several former male pages he had met as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children were disclosed in September. In the ensuing scandal, Foley resigned. The House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into why Foley's friendly behavior toward the pages went undetected.

The House Ethics Committee, in its report on the Foley case, said that former House chief clerk Jeff Trandahl warned Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), then chairman of the page board, that Foley was a "ticking time bomb" who had been confronted repeatedly about his conduct.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-ex-pages19jan20,0,2555095.story

Amazing how those repukes couldn't be bothered to fix this before, yet can vote for it now. Shameless.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. They sort of had to

anyone who voted against this would be considered to be a pervert, or someone shielding a pervert.

[AlinPA]

2. IMO, the page program should be eliminated. Those young people should not be

exposed to the corruption and hateful discord of congress. It is not healthy.