Amidst the many reasons that Republicans lost control of the House and Senate last year was a concern about the House page program. Congressman Mark Foley behaved reprehensibly toward the pages, and House leaders were unable to convince voters that they had responded to Foley’s transgressions quickly and properly. Because the pages are High School students who’ve traveled far from home and put themselves under the ‘protection’ of the House of Representatives, voters have a high standard for how they should be treated. With that in mind, it’s surprising that House Democrats have allowed a mini-page scandal to arise on their watch. And their handling of it led first to the resignation of several Republicans on the page board, and now an internal investigation:
Representatives Ginny Brown Waite and Shelley Moore Capito are the two Republicans who have resigned from the board. Ms. Brown Waite seems particularly concerned about the way the program has been handled this year:
How the House protects and oversees the young people in the page program ought not be a political issue. Both Republicans and Democrats ought to agree that the interest of the pages come first. For that reason, it’s heartening to see that Speaker Pelosi and Republican Leader Boehner are in agreement on how the investigation should be conducted. Still, it’s troubling that even after the extraordinary attention to the program last year and the effort to fix it this year, those responsible for the program still seem unable to communicate effectively about it. There’s already been talk of shutting down the program; incidents like this may make that the only real option.
