by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
At the risk of stating the obvious, the idea that Mark Foley's personal pecadillos should lead to the end of the House page program gets things backwards. The message it sends is that Congress is institutionally incapable of controlling its own members from making inappropriate advances at teenagers. To review, Rep.'s Denny Hastert (R-IL) and John Shimkus (R-IL) have prior experience as schoolteachers and coaches, where they were undoubtedly forced to deal with the issue of appropriate conduct around high schoolers. In addition, after decades of abuse scandals involving boy scouts, hockey coaches, the Catholic church, and any number of employers, one would think that Congress would have the good sense to treat these issues seriously. Certainly members ought to devise some system to prevent Congressmen (and women) from being in situations where they could take advantage of the positions of power.
