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Foley follies
What Can Be
Learned From The History of Congressional Sex Scandals,
And How Can the Page Program Be Reformed? By JOHN W. DEAN Oct.
06, 2006
Though Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley's solicitation of sex with underage boys working as Congressional pages is making front-page news, it is, regrettably, not unprecedented. Most Congressional sex scandals have involved adults, but four have included minors - at least two of whom were Congressional pages. I've taken a look at the historical record of such Congressional indiscretions, and in this column, I'll ask what, if anything, we can we learn from them - particularly, from those relating to Congressional pages? A Brief History of Congressional Sex Scandals I've compiled a brief history of Congressional sex scandals, going back to 1850. While I cannot attest that I have located every such scandal, I do believe the thirty-six I have found are representative. And I am certain I have found all the reported cases that are similar to the unfolding Foley scandal - in that they involve minors. Neither Congressional Republicans nor Democrats can boast sexual probity regarding minors, or inappropriate relationships with pages, or in any other way, for that matter. Nonetheless, according to my historical survey, Democrats may be a bit more vigorous in their indiscretions: My survey shows twenty Democrats, versus sixteen Republicans, involved in sex scandals. The Scandals in Which Congressmen Were Sexually Involved with Minors Other Than Pages Democrats controlled the House of Representatives when prior sex scandals involving minors occurred. Republicans, of course, have controlled the House since 1995. In 1978, Congressman Fred Richmond (D. NY) was arrested for soliciting sex from a sixteen-year-old African-American delivery boy, who, as it happened, was accompanied by an undercover police officer. Richmond apologized, acknowledged his bad judgment, and agreed to undergo psychiatric treatment in exchange for the dropping of charges. The House took no action. Notwithstanding efforts by his opponent to make the most of the scandal, Richmond won reelection. But his career in Congress ended four years later after he pled guilty to possession of marijuana and tax evasion and resigned. Later, when a dead body was found in his apartment, a man who had overdosed on drugs, Richmond ended up serving nine months behind bars. In 1980, Congressman Robert Bauman (R. MD) was accused of soliciting sex from a sixteen-year-old boy, who in turn tried to extort money from the congressman in exchange for his silence. Bauman tried but failed to use his alcoholism as the explanation for his homosexual behavior. His conservative colleagues disowned him. Bauman was able to get the charges dropped but he was defeated in his reelection bid -- not for being gay, but rather for his hypocrisy: Bauman had ardently promoted family values and attacked gays. In 1986 Bauman published an autobiography: The Gentlemen from Maryland: The Conscience of a Gay Conservative. (Today, Bauman is a tax attorney.) In 1989, Ohio authorities uncovered the sexual relationship between Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens (R. OH), who was divorced, and Rosie Coffman, an African-American girl Lukens had sex with first when she was thirteen (in 1985), and again when she was sixteen (in 1988). An indictment followed, and in 1989, an Ohio Court convicted Lukens on a misdemeanor, contributing to the delinquency and unruliness of a child, and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. Lukens claimed he did not know the girl was a teenager. At trial, the girl testified that she and a nineteen-year-old girlfriend went to Luken's home unsolicited, and all three got in bed and had sex. The House Ethics Committee started, then stopped, an investigation - deciding in the end that such matters should be resolved by the congressman's constituents. Lukens not only lost the May 1990 primary, but had to resign before the end of his term in January 1991: A complaint by a female elevator operator at the Capitol that Lukens had fondled her left him with no other option. (Lukens later served time in federal prison for accepting a bribe from an Ohio businessman while serving in Congress.) Neither Fred Richmond nor Robert Bauman was formally charged with solicitation of a minor; no actual sexual activity was unearthed; and the House took no action. Buz Lukens, on the other hand, was convicted of sex with a minor - not to mention alleged to have fondled an employee of the House - so he was told to resign or suffer expulsion. A Brief History of Congressmen Sexually Involved With Pages That brings us to the small subset of Congressional sex scandals that have specifically involved pages. The Congressional Page program has existed for over 150 years, with both the House and Senate selecting high school students to come to Washington for a semester, where they attend a special school and work as errand-runners and messengers for House and Senate members. It is a marvelous program. Overwhelmingly, those selected have been among the best and brightest of their generation; many have gone on to distinguished careers - largely stimulated by their experience in Washington. Pages are patronage appointments, allocated by the Speaker of the House and the Senate leadership. Currently the House, which Foley's actions have forced into focus, has 72 pages - 48 appointed by Republicans and 24 by Democrats. Although the program itself is laudable, it has over time resulted in a number of allegations of what amounts to statutory rape. For example, in 1978, Steven R. Valentine, a former page, published a book, Each Time A Man (1978), about his experiences as a page in 1973-1974. Valentine said he knew of a homosexual Congressman who "actively sought out and apparently still seeks out homosexual relationships with minor male pages." He added, "In 1973, for instance, one House page allegedly accompanied the Congressman to Spain during one of the lengthy Congressional recesses." More scandalous allegations relating to pages arose in 1982-83. On June 30, 1982, former page Leroy Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas told CBS News that he had engaged in illicit sexual relations with several Congressmen, and had arranged for male prostitutes to have sex with others. Then another former page, Jeff Opp of Denver, came forward to say "that he had knowledge of, but had not participated in, parties with members of Congress involving sex and cocaine." When the New York Times spoke to Steven Valentine in July 1982, Valentine commented that "friends told him that two Congressmen had engaged in homosexual relations with pages. One Congressman [was] still serving in the House, … and the other was defeated for re-election." Without naming names, Valentine added that another Congressman was rumored to have invited pages to share an apartment rent-free in exchange for homosexual favors. Valentine said he never told the authorities because he was afraid that "some of the activities were so sordid I might be endangered if I did anything with it," and added, "I was only 18 at the time." The Times noted that, based on Leroy Williams's accusations, the Democratic leaders of the House had immediately launched an investigation "with uncustomary speed." House leaders said they believed the charges by Williams were exaggerated, but were taking no chances, so they pressed for an inquiry, even if it was going to prove politically embarrassing. The investigation was undertaken by the House Ethics Committee, which, in turn, appointed a special counsel, Joseph A. Califano, Jr.. Within day, it was discovered that Williams was lying. The Washington Post reported that Williams had given several different stories to investigators, not to mention the Post itself. And Williams's own lawyer, Bob Scott, told the Post that his client had failed an FBI polygraph test, badly. Not only that, Williams had a checkered history: As a page, he was suspected of drug use and of stealing another page's car. And to top off Williams's credibility problems, male prostitutes he claimed to have arranged for members of Congress told reporters that it was really Williams himself who had been their customer. Other witnesses, however, were credible, so the investigation proceeded. After a good bit of digging, it led to Congressmen Dan Crane (R. Ill) and Gerry Studds (D. Mass). Both admitted having sex with teenage pages: Crane with a seventeen-year-old girl (in 1980), and Studds with a seventeen-year-old boy (in 1973). Because the age of consent in the District of Columbia, where the activities took place, was sixteen, neither faced criminal charges. The House Ethics Committee recommended that they be reprimanded, but not expelled. Republicans, under the leadership of Newt Gingrich, demanded expulsion. In the end, the House took the middle ground and censured both men. A tearful Crane apologized to his family and colleagues, but his Republican- dominated district's constituents voted him out of office in 1984. Studds, however, refused to apologize, and was reelected repeatedly by his largely Democratic district. In 1996, he retired voluntarily from Congress. The Crane and Studds scandals resulted in a restructuring of the page program, meant to protect youngsters from such relationships with Members of Congress. Unfortunately, as we now know, such protection is still inadequate. A Closer Look at the Studds Case The Foley situation has drawn particular attention to the Studds case, because both involved male Members of Congress and male pages - and there are, indeed, some parallels, at least based on what is known of the Foley case thus far. In the Studds case, the report of the House Ethics Committee revealed the following: One page - who did not come forward willingly, but was named by another page - testified in his deposition that "he had visited Rep. Studds' apartment at the congressman's invitation on at least three or four occasions in 1973 and that Rep. Studds and the page had engaged in sexual activity on each of those occasions." Then, the page testified, "in late July, 1973, Rep. Studds invited him to travel abroad during the August recess. The page agreed, and the two took a 2 ½ week trip together abroad. According to the page's testimony, they engaged in sexual activity every two or three days during this trip." The page also "testified that he paid his own air fare to Europe, and a portion of the cost of meals and lodging with Rep. Studds," and that his relationship with Mr. Studds ended when they returned to the United States. At the time, Studds was 36, and the page was 17 - and may have been 16 when the relationship began. (According to the report, two other former pages, both male also "stated under oath that Rep. Studds made sexual advances to them in 1973 while they were serving as House pages." One page was 17 at the time of the relationship; the other was 16 or 17.) According to the report, the page who testified he had traveled with Studds also testified that shortly after he met the Congressman, he was invited to his house in Georgetown for dinner. At the dinner, the page testified, "we sat around and talked about abstract and general questions, all types and descriptions, until four in the morning, drinking vodka and cranberry juice, at which time I was told by the congressman that he was too drunk to give me a ride home and so he said, 'Why don't you sleep here?' and I did." "At that point," the report goes on, "according to the page's testimony, the congressman engaged the page in sexual activity." After that, the report says, "The page testified that the sexual relationship continued," - with "three or four" additional dinners, each of which was accompanied by "sexual activity." The Page's Defense of the Congressman Interestingly, while the page said he was "flattered and excited" by the Congressman's dinner invite, he denied that he felt "intimidated" by Studds. And he took pains to add that Studds "was an intelligent, witty, gentle man with I think a high level of insecurity. He did nothing to me which I would consider destructive or painful." The page went on, "In another time, in another society, the action would be acceptable, perhaps even laudable. Unfortunately this is not the case. I have no ax to grind with him. I have nothing negative to say about the man. In fact, I thought that he provided me with one of the more wonderful experiences of my life, if we exclude the instances of sexual experience which I was somewhat uncomfortable with. But I did not think it was that big a deal." An interesting exchange, from the pages deposition, then followed: "Q. You said you felt uncomfortable with it, did you continue with him because he was a congressman, because he was someone you were impressed with? "A. No. Well, I kept company with him because he was an intelligent man, a fun person to be with. If I could have had my druthers, I would have had the friendship that I had with the man without the sex. And I mentioned that to him. The page also testified as follows that Studds did not offer him any preferential treatment or any inducement to have the relationship, nor did Studds ever threaten or coerce him. Indeed, the page testified, "Essentially all I needed to do to stop the relationship was walk out the door, or not go in the door, as the case may be." Finally, the Ethics Committee's report noted, "The page testified that he is not homosexual and he had not had a homosexual relationship prior to his relationship with Rep. Studds." What Is To Be Learned From this History? One Proposal Seems Wise It is clear that members of Congress have a history of engaging in sexual activities with minors, with some voters tolerant of their behavior, others not. Given this reality, and the fact that Congressional pages have again become objects of sexual predation, it would seem time that radical changes ought to be made in the page program. Members of Congress are not elected to baby-sit, nor are they given their high offices to further their sex lives. It is time to either end the page program, as Congressman Ray LaHood has suggested, or radically reform it, for Republicans - notwithstanding their professed family values - are no better at overseeing the page program than their predecessors. It would be thoughtless, however, to scrap the program because of the latest misbehavior by Mark Foley. If ever there has been a time to close down the program it was in 2002, when eleven pages were quietly expelled from the program after smoking dope, and bringing marijuana back to the page dormitory. But then that would have been unfair to the other pages, who had done nothing wrong. Jonathan Turley -- a former Congressional page who is now professor of law at George Washington University School of Law -- has offered a great solution. Writing for the New York Times, Turley points out that, under the current system, pages are reluctant to come forward, and members of Congress are reluctant to investigate their own when charges are made. However, Turley notes, "[s]ome of Washington's most powerful figures in politics, media, business and the law are former pages," and "[t]hey are neither intimidated by members of Congress nor hesitant to drag a member to account. They are protective of pages and have the clout to match their concern." These are also people pages could feel at ease speaking with, for as Steven Valentine's comments show, they understand. Professor Turley, who has many good ideas, never had a better one: It's time to create a Board of Overseers for the Congressional Page program made up of former pages. This is exactly what history, and the folly of Mr. Foley, instruct should be done. The sooner, the better. October 6, 2006 advocate.com
Hey,
Mark Foley! Stop using sexuality to explain away why you're so screwed
up. You're screwed up because you were a mess to start with, not
because you drink too much (allegedly).
You're a creep. Live with it. Our president lies about WMDs in Iraq and launches an unjust and unnecessary war. We are in debt beyond belief. Home prices are plummeting. Government spending is out of control. A woman’s right to choose is under attack. Gays are bashed regularly by members of Congress and the President. Americans are dying as we speak. We’ve lost the war in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden has not been captured, the Chinese basically own us, and goodwill toward Americans is at an all-time low. There can be no doubt there’s lot to talk about and a lot of upsetting events. But what’s got the media on their heads? Ex-Representative Mark Foley: a pervert. a congressman, a Republican from Florida who likes to hear about how 16-year-old boys masturbate, a leader who used his own power to seduce young pages and ex-pages. A man whose party covered up his behavior by saying “bad dog, don’t do it again, bad.” Now there’s huge fallout, and the Republicans have cut and run from Foley faster than they say the Democrats want to do from Iraq and now. The pathetic justifications have begun. Foley is reportedly in rehab for alcoholism—a personal problem that no one in his immediate world even knew existed. Some have told reporters they don't even believe Foley is an alcoholic. But off to rehab he goes--you know, the place celebrities go when they want the public to forgive them for this or that transgression, or simply to hide out. Mel Gibson on an anti-Semitic rage? Rehab. Kate Moss coke-head? Rehab. An embarrassing car wreck in Washington, D.C., in the middle of the night? Rehab. Betray the public trust and try and seduce a child in your care? Rehab. Oh, and the latest excuses du jour is that he’s gay and that he was abused as a child by clergy. Come on, Foley, it’s 2006. Who hasn’t been seduced by this or that clergyperson? But oh, no—more reasons to feel sorry for poor Mark. It’s not his fault. Say it with me: Poppycock. First of all, I wish he had not come out (like a coward, in absentia via a lawyer's statement). Great, just what we need: a pedophile who claims to be gay. Boy, doesn’t that feed into what America thinks of us already, at least conservative America. So now he’s hurt one or more teenagers, his party, his state, his family, and the gay community. What a slimeball hypocrite, like most of his Republican ilk in power. Did I mention that he chaired the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and was a cosponsor of the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act? Can’t wait for John Walsh on CNN to explain away this. First of all, the moment a 50-something congressman sent an e-mail to a 16-year-old asking for a pic, a huge red flag should have gone up. Did it? Nope. Dennis Hastert says he didn’t know how bad it was from just that exchange. Well, then, Dennis, you’re a blind idiot whose eyes might not even have opened wide if the e-mail had been sent to your grandson. Hastert and other Republicans that knew of Foley's inappropriate contact with pages and ex-pages, and they didn’t do the right thing, the transparent thing. They didn't do anything, really. They did not, for one thing, inform key Democrats who also oversee the page program. They did not bring the appropriate people into the mix to solve the problem. Maybe they might have told Foley to shape up and then covered it up. And when the cover-up and scandal blew up, they cut and ran, and now Foley blames alcohol, being gay, and being molested; right-wing talk radio is blaming the Democrats (a dodge so ludicrous it's not even worth discussing). OK, here’s the deal. I had sex at age 16 with men double my age. I was not molested, but it happened. And I’m gay. And up until my 40th birthday, I could have drunk Foley under the table. Now I have had sex with a 19-year-old. And good for me—he was totally hot and legally of age. But I turn my head the opposite way when passing by a high school where the jocks are on the field. Who needs that temptation? That being said, I have never tried to seduce anyone under age 18 via IM, text, e-mail, snail mail, in person or otherwise, even with all the demons in my own past. But the worst part here is that Foley was in my House. He was in your House too. He was in the people’s House: Congress. The children, the pages, were in the care of "We the People. "And in our care these bastards let Foley's behavior go on and looked the other way. And to try and justify this and blame your sexuality, your childhood - I’ll say here the same thing I said about good ol' Jim McGreevey: I am so sick of people blaming being gay for anything other than the fact they sleep with the person of the same gender. Stop using your sexuality to explain away why you’re so screwed up. You’re so screwed up because you’re a mess to start with, not because you sleep with a person of the same sex. It’s like my old saying when referencing cocaine: They say it intensifies the person. Pople who take it say it really lets them be themselves to the fullest. Well, what if you're an asshole to begin with? Now you’re just an intense asshole. Great. From all reports, Foley appears to be a pedophile, someone who wants to have sex with minors, and that's just plain wrong in America. If he wants to behave that way, he should live in Amsterdam where the age of consent is 14. Want to know whether a kid uses a towel when he jacks off? Want to know if a girl has given him a hand job this weekend? Read his blog. If it’s not there, then guess what? It’s none of your business. In fact, it's none of your business in any case. It's age-old scenario, really: the combination of an authority abusing his power and of a compliant victim who may have been afraid to just say no, or may have thought he'd gain some advantage from playing along. Older power figure, younger opportunist—you do the math. And whatever gender combination is involved doesn’t matter. Charles Karel Bouley
Charles Karel Bouley is a columnist for Advocate.com and IN Magazine Los Angeles and his book of essays You Can't Say That is published by Alyson Press. He maintains a blog, podcasts and message boards at karelchannel.com and can be reached at info@karelchannel.com. Michael Gaynor, October
7, 2006. renewamerica.us
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936), American writer and humorist, was right: "Politics ain't beanbag." The Mark Foley scandal demonstrates that yet again. Mr. Foley, a Republican Congressman who rejected some fundamental values shared by the bulk of Republicans, promptly resigned as a Congressman (thereby avoiding expulsion); took the rehabilitation clinic route. Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, had followed (again) earlier this year; publicly announced that he is gay; and, in addition to claiming an alcohol problem, claimed that forty years ago he was molested for a couple of years by a clergyman he never saw fit to accuse before and whom he still has not named. Congress will be better without Mr. Foley, but NOT with either House (much less both Houses) in Democrat control. Democrats are milking the timely (for them) Foley scandal furiously, ignoring the key fact — that Mr. Foley was not really a champion of traditional family values, but a hypocrite who did not practice what he preached and a Democrat whose conversion to Republican was opportunistic and partial instead of principled and complete. Back in 1960, JFK successfully ran for President by campaigning against an imaginary missile gap that supposedly had arisen during the Eisenhower administration and trying to have it both ways on the religious issues (Catholics would vote for him to become America's first Catholic president and Protestants who vote for him too to demonstrate their fairness or be suspected of religious bigotry). It worked. Barely. This year Democrats are campaigning to take control of Congress by portraying Republicans as protectors of a gay man who switched from the Democrat to the Republican and apparently thought of House pages as opportunities. But that gay man - former Representative Mark Foley of Florida - disdained the traditional values of Republicans and instead embraced the "values" of the Leftists who dominate the Democrat Party. He is pro-choice, not pro-life. Make no mistake: when it comes to preserving traditional family values, protecting America, respecting the Constitution and promoting prosperity, Republicans generally remain the better choice. (HONORABLE Republicans, that is; not political opportunists like Mr. Foley who misused the Republican Party the way he wanted to misuse Pages.) Once both the Republican and Democrat Parties were pro-life. The Democrat Party abandoned its support of the right to life of unborn babies. Mr. Foley found it convenient to become a Republican, but without really embracing the moral values respected by Republicans. Ironically, Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the Senate's No. 3 Republican and up for re-election to a third term this year, having been pilloried by the secular extremists in 2003 for wisely warning against the United States Supreme Court heading down the slippery sloppy toward moral depravity, by depriving the people of their right to regulate sexual behavior, now is being buffeted by political winds blowing since Mr. Foley was outed as a Page stalker shortly before Election Day 2000. Senator Santorum should not be a casualty of the righteous rage against Mr. Foley and reasonable suspicion that more should have been sooner to discovery his perverse predilection. Manuel Miranda, Chairman of The Third Branch Conference, warned of the devastating effect on the judiciary that Democrat success in the upcoming Congressional elections would have: "By the end of his eight years, President Clinton had confirmed over half of the federal judiciary. Nearing six years, this President Bush has not yet been allowed to fill even one-third of the federal bench. "I remind you that if we lose the Senate we lose the fight for the courts, especially the Supreme Court. Losing two seats will mean that we will lose the threat of the nuclear option and have the full return of the filibuster. Losing the Senate leadership, will mean that, based on precedent, over 50 judicial nominees will never see the light of a hearing, others will never get a floor vote." In addition, Mr. Miranda emphasized Senator Santorum's personal importance: "And on the judge issue, we especially cannot lose Rick Santorum. In fact, I would rather lose the Senate leadership than Santorum. It was his leadership that made the judge issue come alive for Americans when Democrats controlled the Senate in 2002. Bob Casey would merely vote with his leadership on judges." This term the Democrats cleverly put up a pro-life (for a Democrat) candidate to oppose Senator Santorum. As a first-term Senator, he would be insignificant in the battle to replace judicial activists with strict constructionists and thereby return to the kind of government the Constitution was designed to provide. Christine McCarthy McMorris, in "Santorum v. Sodomy" (Religion in the News, Summer 2003, Vol. 6, No. 2) related that in an AP interview Senator Santorum. a Catholic, had "blamed his church's sexual abuse scandal on 'the right to privacy lifestyle' and then proceeded to warn that the Supreme Court's [then] pending decision on the constitutionality of Texas' sodomy law could put the nation on a slippery slope to moral depravity." Senator Santorum: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." Senator Santorum was reiterating the slippery slope argument made by Justice Byron White (a JFK appointment to the United States Supreme Court). Senator Santorum also opined that homosexuality is "antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family." The AP story, by Lara Jakes Jordan, was well titled — "Family Values Drive Santorum's Politics," but it was not generally well received when it appeared on April 21, 2003. There was a news lull after Baghdad fell and the mainstream media targeted Senator Santorum for daring to agree with Justice White. Ms. McMorris succinctly summarized the firestorm: "'Hear ye, hear ye,' cried the New York Times, 'Senator Rick Santorum feels obliged to offer gratuitous guidance to the Supreme Court in the form of an ad hoc, highly unlearned ruling that equates homosexuality with bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery.' 'Rick Santorum has contracted serious cases of foot-in-mouth disease and intolerance,' opined the Greensboro, N.C. News and Record. 'Just apologize,' ordered the St. Louis Post-Dispatch." "'[B]ecause it is still respectable to show distaste for gays in the name of moral behavior,' declared the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 'Sen. Santorum does not feel the need to step down from a leadership role or readily apologize for speaking like an oaf.' Concurring chastisement came from the Allentown Morning Call, Erie Times News, Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, and Philadelphia Inquirer, among others." In an April 25 editorial, the Wall Street Journal, citing a seven-year old United States Supreme Court decision (Bowers v. Hardwick, 1986), ridiculed the attacks on Senator Santorum: "Let's see if we have this right. By expressing a legal view of privacy already enshrined in a Supreme Court decision, Rick Santorum is somehow unfit for U.S. Senate leadership?" Regrettably, the White House did not give Senator Santorum the kind of support it is giving Speaker Dennis Hastert now: "The president thinks the senator is an inclusive man," spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters April 25, "And that is what he thinks." As the AP interview showed, Senator Santorum is an orthodox Catholic who does not abandon the tenets of his faith for the same of political expediency: "SANTORUM: I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. "AP: OK, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex? "SANTORUM: ...In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." Senator Santorum supports traditional marriage, not mocking it. Adam Nagourney and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times reported that Senator Santorum is "a Roman Catholic who attends Mass every day" and whose "religious views inform a philosophy that many of his colleagues describe as unwavering and as conservative as anyone's in the Senate." Translation: He's not like Senator Ted Kennedy or any of the other immoral exemplars of either major political party who pretend that supporting a civil right to abort is compatible with the Catholc religion. IF any Republicans covered up for former Congressman Foley (and it is not established that any did, but it certainly warrants thorough investigation), or any Democrats sat on evidence that Mr. Foley was a danger to Pages, waiting for a propitious political moment for disclosure (and that too has not been established and certainly warrants through investigation), those individuals should be punished, by the voters and in accordance with law. BUT, bona fide champions of traditional family values, like Senator Santorum and the bulk of Republican candidates, should not be blamed for not knowing what they had no reason to know (and no one has a reason to know that a gay Congressperson necessarily is a threat to Congressional Pages). Ms. McMorris's article made it absolutely clear that Senator Santorum was not one to set aside his values for political advantage: "On April 25, the Washington Post's Alan Cooperman, looking more deeply into the theological issues, turned to Chester Gillis, chairman of the theology department at Georgetown University. 'e's been listening to the bishops or maybe the pope,'Gillis said, noting that this set Santorum apart from the many Catholics who 'disagree with Church teachings on sexuality.' "Cooperman pointed out that on January 16 the Vatican had issued a directive instructing Catholics in public office not to 'put aside the church's teachings when making public decisions on such matters as abortion, euthanasia and same sex marriage.' Santorum, however, required no such directive." Senatorum Santorum on then presidential candidate JFK's famous 1960 speech to Southern Baptist ministers in Houston, vowing not to take orders from the Vatican: It "has caused much harm in America. All of us have heard people say, 'I privately am against abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, cloning. But who am I to decide that it's not right for somebody else? It sounds good, but it is the corruption of freedom of conscience.'" Ms. McMorris noted that Senator Santorum's poll results remained constant: "For all the commotion, the controversy seemed to have little impact, one way or another, on the stolid citizens of the Keystone State. A Quinnipiac University poll released May 22 found Santorum enjoying exactly the same fifty-five percent approval rating that he had when Jordan's story appeared a month earlier." On June 26, the United States Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws in 13 states and Puerto Rico. Senator Santorum issued a press release declaring that the Court "has determined to slide down the 'slippery slope.'" The judicial activists on the Court who effected that result may have facilitated the Foley scandal and the current political impact of it. NOT Senator Santorum or any of the bona fide champions of traditional values. As the Judicial Confirmation Network (www.judicialnetwork.com) states, "the proper role of a judge or justice is to interpret the law and the Constitution — not make up the law and deprive the people of the right to govern ourselves" and "a judge or a justice should not use the power of the court to impose his or her personal or political agenda on the people." If you want activists like Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer (Clinton appointees) on the bench, vote Democrat. But if you want judges who follow the law instead of make it, like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., vote Republican. Michael J. Gaynor, born in New York in 1949, has been practicing law in New York for more than thirty years. A member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, he is now a solo practitioner and admitted to practice in the New York State courts, the United States District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is a regular columnist at www.MichNews.com, www.renewamerica.us, www.webcommentary.com and has contributed to www.catholiconline.com, www.intellectualconservative.com, www.therant.us, and www.peoplepolitical.com . He can be contacted at GaynorMike@aol.com. By LEE BOWMAN , 06.10.06
Questions about who knew what and when about Rep. Mark Foley's communications with House pages are now at the heart of a House investigation, while criminal investigators try to determine if any laws were violated by the former congressman in his contacts with minors. While new details and disclosures continue to emerge, here is a chronology of what's come out about the matter so far: 1994: Florida state senator Mark Foley is elected to Congress for the first of six terms as part of a mid-term Republican surge of 54 seats that gives the GOP control of the House for the first time in 40 years . 1995: Foley hires Kirk Fordham as his chief of staff. 1997: A few months after completing service as a House page, Tyson Vivyan, now 26, says he started receiving sexually suggestive messages from a person he later guessed was Foley. He told AP he and another former page later visited Foley in his Capitol Hill townhouse, where they drank soft drinks and ate pizza. 1998-2002: According to ABC News, three former pages who worked for the House during this time have reported "sexual approaches" over the Internet from Foley after their service when they were just 16 or 17. 2001: A former page who worked in the House in 2001-2002 says a Republican staff member warned pages "to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley." He says they were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff." 2003: Foley has sexually explicit instant-messaging exchanges with at least one underage boy who had worked as a congressional page. Two other former pages have reported they were aware of suggestive e-mails being sent to "three or four" pages from the 2001-2002 class. May 2003: Foley faces questions about his sexual orientation as he campaigns for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Florida. He eventually drops out of the race. Fall 2003: Fordham says he contacted Scott Palmer, chief of staff to House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, with concerns that Foley was getting too close to young male pages and would not stop the inappropriate behavior. He says Palmer met with Foley to discuss the concerns and that Palmer told Hastert about the meeting. Palmer and Hastert deny that the consersation took place. January 2004: Fordham leaves Foley's office and goes to work for Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. August/Summer 2005: Foley sends e-mails to a 16-year-old Louisiana boy who had been a page. Among other things, he asked the boy what he wanted for his birthday, talked to the teenager about another boy being "in great shape" and asked the former page to send him a photo. September 2005: The Louisiana boy contacts staff in the Washington office of his congressman, Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., about the e-mails from Foley. He forwards them, calling them "sick" 13 times and saying "This freaks me out." Alexander contacts the boy and his parents. September 2005: Royal Alexander, the congressman's chief of staff, calls Tim Kennedy, a staff assistant to Hastert, informing him that he had an e-mail exchange between Foley and a former House page that was of concern, but does not reveal the specific text. After consulting with Hastert's counsel, the speaker's deputy chief of staff, Mike Stokke, meets with Alexander's chief of staff, but again does not discuss the specific content of the e-mail. Stokke arranges a meeting between then House Clerk Jeff Trandahl and Royal Alexander, but Alexander, citing the boy's privacy concerns, declined to show the text, and described the exchange only as "over-friendly" and said the family wanted the contact to stop. Trandahl asked if the e-mail exchange was sexual in nature and was assured it was not, according to Hastert's official account of the handling of the matter. September 2005: Trandahl, who is in charge of the page operation, contacts Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the House Page Board, to discuss the matter. They set up a meeting with Foley. Shimkus says he only saw portions of two e-mails from Foley that asked the boy how he was doing after Hurricane Katrina and another asking for a photo. According to Shimkus, Foley told them "he was simply acting as a mentor to the former page and that nothing inappropriate had occurred." Shimkus told Foley to avoid any appearance of impropriety with pages and at the request of the parents, to cease any communication with the young man. November 2005: Copies of the e-mail exchanges with the former page and Foley are given to the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, one of several news organizations in Florida and Washington that were given the material around this time. Times editors assign two reporters to investigate. They talk to the boy and his family, but the family refuses to allow the boy to be identified by name. The paper decides not to publish such serious allegations using an unnamed source. February-March 2006: Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., mentions the "existence of e-mails between Foley and the former page from Alexander's district. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Reynolds say they talked with Hastert about the matter and Boehner says he was told the matter has been addressed. Hastert says he does not recall the conversations about Foley. Reynolds recalls telling Hastert that the actions by the Clerk and Shimkus had resolved the matter. May 10, 2006: After personally urging Foley to seek a seventh term, Reynold's political action committee, TOMPAC, donates $5,000 to Foley's re-election campaign. July 21, 2006: The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, sends the suggestive e-mails via the Internet to a special agent in the FBI's Washington field office. CREW said it received those e-mails that same day from a "third party" who had received them from a congressional staffer. The FBI later says these e-mails did not appear to be a criminal matter. July 27, 2006: Foley's political action committee donates $100,000 to the Republican congressional campaign committee chaired by Reynolds. July 27, 2006: Foley, as co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, attends a signing ceremony at the White House for the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which he helped author. Sept. 28, 2006: ABCNews.com publishes e-mails between Foley and the former page from Louisiana. Other news organizations that have been given the material move on the story, which Foley initially dismisses as a smear effort by his Democratic rival, Tim Mahoney, who calls for an investigation. Sept. 29, 2006: ABC and Internet blogs publish sexually explicit instant messages between Foley and several former pages. Foley abruptly sends a letter of resignation to Hastert, who initially says he was not aware until the week before of allegations of improper behavior by Foley. Pressed by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, the House votes to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee, which is to issue a preliminary report within 10 days. Sept. 30, 2006: Hastert issues a detailed account of how House officials handled the e-mail complaint about Foley from the Louisiana page. It concludes: "No one was ever made aware of any sexually-explicit e-mail or text messages at any time." Hastert and other House Republican leaders issue a statement calling Foley's communications with former pages "an obscene breach of trust" and call for the House Page Board and the House Ethics Committee to take additional actions. Oct. 1, 2006: Hastert, in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that notes Foley is now out of the reach of Congress to investigate, asks for the Justice Department to examine "Mr. Foley's conduct with current and former House pages to determine to what extent any of his actions violated federal law." The FBI confirms it is "conducting an assessment to see if there has been a violation of federal law." In a second letter, Hastert asks Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to see if any state laws were broken, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement later confirms it has started an inquiry. Oct. 2, 2006: Hastert comes under increasing criticism from inside the GOP and various conservative organizations for how the Foley matter was handled, and faces calls that he resign. After meeting with Shimkus to discuss possible additional safeguards for pages, including a hotline to report misconduct against them, Hastert says: "Congressman Foley duped a lot of people. I've known him for all the years he has worked in this House and he deceived me, too." Oct. 2: Foley, through his attorney, announces that he has checked himself into a rehab facility "for immediate treatment for alcoholism and other behavioral problems." Oct. 2: CREW sends a letter to the inspector general of the Justice Department requesting an investigation into why the FBI did not initiate an investigation of Foley's contacts with minors until now. Oct. 3: Foley's attorney, David Roth, tells a news conference that Foley, when he was a child, was molested by a member of the clergy and that he is gay. But he denies that Foley had any sexual contact with a minor. Oct. 4: Fordham resigns from Reynolds' staff and tells reporters he had conversations with House leaders about Foley's behavior before January 2004. Oct 4: The Justice Department orders the House to preserve Foley's computer files as negotiations with House counsel continues over FBI access to legislative files. There are reports that the FBI has begun interviewing former pages and several have hired lawyers. Oct. 5: The House Ethics Committee meets on the Foley case, sets up a four-member investigative panel, and votes to issue 44 subpoenas to witnesses and for documents in a probe to determine who knew about Foley's conduct and what was done about it. Hastert vows not to resign, saying "I haven't done anything wrong" but says "the bottom line is responsibility." He added, during a news conference outside his Illinois district office: "I don't know who knew what when ... if it's members of my staff that didn't do the job, we will act appropriately." See also Did Democrats Page Mark Foley? Who Knew Congressman Foley Was a Closeted Democrat? |
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