Foley Scandal Resonates in Close Congressional Campaigns
More from the Connecticut race in the U.S. News Campaign Diary
Illinois 1: David McSweeney vs. Rep. Melissa Bean
Illinois Republican David McSweeney suggested scrapping the congressional page program, citing Foley's lurid electronic messages with former pages along with other scandals in the past.
"Congress has obviously done a very poor job [of] maintaining oversight of this program, and it's time to eliminate it," McSweeney told U.S. News. "I don't want to put anyone else at risk."
McSweeney first made the suggestion in an informal debate Monday for the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, where he also defended Republican House leaders as "men of integrity" and praised their push to have the Justice Department investigate Foley.
Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean disagrees that the program should be ended and instead blames GOP House leaders for the scandal.
"We need leadership that will not tolerate at any level a lack of oversight and protection for children," Bean said at the newspaper debate.
More from the Illinois race in the U.S. News Campaign Diary
New Mexico 1: Patricia Madrid vs. Rep. Heather Wilson
Democratic Attorney General Patricia Madrid has continued hammering New Mexico Republican Rep. Heather Wilson over the Foley scandal, even after Wilson promised to donate any campaign contributions from Foley to charity.
Madrid's campaign was quick to pounce on donations made to Wilson by Foley's leadership political action committee, saying that Wilson "still had not returned" the donations. Within a few hours this weekend, Wilson became the first Republican to announce plans to donate the contributions, which she had received during previous congressional races between 1998 and 2002.
Madrid's campaign has accused Wilson of not doing enough to protect congressional pages from sexual advances when she served on the House Page Board from 2001 to 2004. During that time, according to news reports, pages were warned not to get too close to Foley.
"I don't know what she knew or didn't know, but she didn't do her job," Madrid told the Albuquerque Tribune. Wilson's campaign has maintained that the congresswoman was not aware of Foley's E-mail exchanges until last Friday, when she called for a criminal investigation into his behavior.
"Madrid's charges go well over the top and don't have any credibility, and she should be ashamed of herself [for] even suggesting such a malicious thing," Wilson spokesman Enrique Knell said.
More from the New Mexico race in the U.S. News Campaign Diary
With Will Sullivan, Liz Halloran, Bret Schulte, Danielle Knight, Dan Gilgoff, and Elizabeth Weiss Green
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