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A
long Congressional history of protecting sexual predators
October
2, 2006 6:15 AM | Rant
| 27 Comments .
By
DOUG
THOMPSON
A year ago, Speaker of the House Dennis J. Hastert knew the
GOP had a problem in its midst. Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, a
popular Florida Congressman who played a key role in the
Republican Party's struggles to hold on to power in Congress,
was soliciting sex from young male Congressional pages.
Foley's fondness for young boys was no secret in GOP circles.
Like other Members of Congress with known perversions and
sordid sexual habits, Foley's dirty little secret finished
second to political considerations. All they had to do was
keep the scandal under wraps until after the next election.
But Foley was caught sending erotic emails to underage boys in
the Congressional page system and the matter had come to light
from Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA), sponsor of the page who
received the emails from the Congressman.
Hastert met with Rep. Thomas Reynolds, the New York Republican
who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Reynolds admitted this weekend that he and Hastert had known
about Foley's problems for months.
"Rodney Alexander brought to my attention the existence
of the e-mails between Mark Foley and a former page of Mr.
Alexander's," Reynolds admitted over the weekend.
"Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in
question, and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn't
want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the
conversation Mr. Alexander had with me."
Although Hastert met with Foley and told him to cut out the
emails and stay away from pages, he did not notify the Capitol
Hill Police or any other law enforcement agency that Congress
had a sexual predator in its ranks. Nor did he direct the
House Ethics Committee to open an investigation into Foley's
behavior. He didn't even tell the Congressional page board,
the oversight group charged with keeping safe the teenagers
who come to
Washington
to work in Congress. He tried, as happens all too often, to
sweep the matter under a political rug and hope that nothing
would become public.
Foley, Hastert says, promised to cut out the emails. But,
instead, he kept sending messages, not only to the page in
question but to others.
Hastert needed Foley because the loss of any Republican seat
threatened the party's fragile hold on Congress. He gambled he
could keep the scandal long enough to maintain GOP control of
the House.
Congress has a long and sordid history of protecting sexual
predators and other wrongdoers in its midst. In the early
1980s, Republicans knew Rep. Daniel Crane (R-IL) had a
fondness for young women and talk circulated on Capitol Hill
that he was bedding a female page. Over on the Democratic side
of the aisle, Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) preferred boys and his
party tried to suppress stories about his affair with a
17-year-old male page.
Both scandals hit the fan in 1983, resulting in censure of
both members on the floor of the House and reforms of the page
system to provide more security. Crane, who cried and asked
for forgiveness from the House colleagues, lost his
re-election bid in 1984. Studds, however, refused to apologize
and declared his homosexuality in a speech before the House.
He won re-election easily and served several more terms before
retiring.
Democrats controlled the House in 1983. In 1982, Speaker of
the House Tip O'Neill had received numerous complaints about
Studds' behavior along with requests that the Ethics Committee
investigate Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) whose boyfriend ran a gay
prostitution ring out of the Congressman's Capitol Hill
townhouse. O'Neill refused to act. A few years later, DC Vice
cops arrested Frank's boyfriend and charged him with
prostitution.
House Republican Leader Robert Michel also failed to act on
complaints about Crane. It was not the first time he failed to
act on warnings about members of his own party.
In 1980, Michel ignored requests to do something Mississippi
Republican Rep. Jon Hinson who admitted during his campaign
that year that he had been caught exposing himself on the
grounds of the Iwo Jima Memorial in
Arlington
, a popular gathering spot for gays on the prowl. In 1981,
Capitol Hill police caught Hinson performing oral sex on a
male employee of the Library of Congress in a House office
building bathroom. Like Foley, Hinson resigned in disgrace.
Congressional leaders learned nothing from the scandals.
Michel would later be told of problems with Ohio Congressman
Donald "Buzz" Lukens and dismissed the complaints
until
Ohio
courts convicted the Republican lawmaker on charges of
sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl. Capitol Hill Police
also launched an investigation of charges that Lukens fondled
a female elevator operator in the Capitol. He resigned from
office in 1990.
On the Senate side, Republican leaders for years ignored
complaints about Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR). Complaints about
his unwanted sexual advances towards women began to surface in
1982 but no action would be taken until several victims, tired
of waiting for official action, went public in 1992. Packwood
finally resigned in 1995 after the Senate Ethics Committee
finally opened a formal inquiry.
So it's no surprise that the leaders of Congress still do
everything in their considerable power to protect their own
from the laws that govern the rest of
America
. It's the nature of the beast called politics.
©
Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill Blue
Doug Thompson also publishes a personal blog at Blue
Ridge Muse.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/10/a_long_history.html
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