Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin is using the potential election of accused child predator Roy Moore to the Senate to urge protections for the teens serving as interns in Congress.
The congresswoman asked the Senate Sergeant at Arms in a letter on Monday to “take steps to prepare the Page Program for the possible election of Roy Moore,” the Alabama Republican accused of pursuing sexual relationships with girls as young as 14. The 30 Senate pages, who are essentially interns, are mostly rising high school juniors and seniors, some as young as 16.
“I write you today to share my urgent concern regarding the threat to the safety of the young men and women working in the United States Senate Page Program if Roy Moore becomes the U.S. senator to Alabama,” Rep. Moore wrote.
“The nature of life on Capitol Hill necessitates long hours in close proximity to lawmakers and staff that can create power dynamics of which young people are not fully aware,” she added. […]
“It would be unconscionable for Congress not to be vigilant and proactive in taking precautions to safeguard these children given the well sourced allegations against Moore,” she wrote.
She points out that they've had a predators there before—Florida Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican, was forced to resign in 2006 when he was caught sending texts and emails that were sexually suggestive to some teenaged boys in the page program. That was more than two decades after another sex scandal involving the teen pages was unearthed. The only progress in the intervening two decades was that Foley ended up resigning, whereas the two members involved in 1983 were just censured. So, progress?
But that progress comes to a screeching halt when the Republican National Committee and the president* are enthusiastically trying to put these young people in the path of a predator.