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Brown-Waite Drops Page Duty

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By BILLY HOUSE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 7, 2007

WASHINGTON - Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite resigned Thursday from a bipartisan panel responsible for overseeing the teenage congressional page program, saying problems persist a year after the Mark Foley scandal helped propel Democrats into control of the U.S. House.

The Brooksville Republican pointed to what she described as recent incidents of "serious criminal acts" involving pages and "inappropriate sexual indiscretions between the students," about which she says board members were "kept in the dark."

None of the incidents involved members of Congress. The criminal charges involved shoplifting, said Brown-Waite's spokesman, Charlie Keller.

The panel's only other Republican member, West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, also resigned Thursday.

Last year's Foley scandal had erupted with revelations the then-Florida congressman had sent sexually suggestive electronic mail to former pages.

The fallout included allegations that then-House Republican leaders were negligent and in some cases "willfully ignorant" of Foley's improper advances to male pages. The matter is viewed as having contributed to the dismal GOP showing in congressional elections in November.

Now, with Democrats in charge of the chamber, Republicans Brown-Waite and Capito are accusing them of not done enough to fix the program.

"It is clear to me that you have paid nothing more than lip service to a wholesale revamping of the program, and that you have learned nothing from the lessons of the Mark Foley scandal," wrote Brown-Waite, in her resignation letter Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Brown-Waite said she hopes her resignation will bring attention to the ongoing problems.

In at least one of the recent incidents Brown-Waite said has her concerned, board members "were intentionally kept in the dark" about page dismissals for more than a week.

She says the board members "were only given the details after personally confronting the House Clerk with rumors we had heard."

Rep. Dale Kildee, a Michigan Democrat who heads the six-member page board, had no comment Thursday, and a spokesman referred questions to the House clerk's office, which did not address Brown-Waite's claims that the board was kept out of the loop. Instead, it said four pages were dismissed for "inappropriate conduct" under the office's zero-tolerance policy.

A spokesman for Pelosi, a California Democrat, had no immediate comment.

The new Democratic-controlled Congress has passed legislation that President Bush signed into law in February revising the page board.

The legislation added a parent member to join two Republican House members and two Democratic members, and one member who is a former page.

The Foley scandal broke last year, when news surfaced that the congressman had sent sexually explicit electronic messages to teens who had been former pages.

After Foley's subsequent resignation, members of the page board were questioned about what they knew and when about Foley's behavior.

Kildee and Capito were members of the board last year, but both said they were never made aware of Foley's e-mail. Brown-Waite was not appointed to the page board until Feb. 6.

Then-chairman of the board - Rep. John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican - was ultimately admonished in a House Ethics Committee report for not being more aggressive after he first learned of questionable e-mail between Foley and a former page.

Congressional pages come from across the country and have been serving Congress for more than 150 years as messengers and doing other tasks.

Reporter Billy House can be reached at (202) 662-7673 or bhouse@tampatrib.com.

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