GOP Congressman Foley resigns in online teen sex scandal
September 29th, 2006
WEEKEND NEWS UPDATE.FLORIDA: CONGRESSMAN FOLEY RESIGNS IN ONLINE TEEN SEX SCANDAL.
In a period of less than 24 hours, Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) went from strong re-election favorite to resigning in disgrace in a still developing online sex scandal involving underage teen boys. Foley first denied he engaged in any inappropriate conduct with a 16-year-old male former Capitol Hill page from Louisiana. Hours later, his staff tried to blame the entire incident as being a set-up by his Democratic opponent. Later on Friday afternoon ABC News published sexually graphic email and instant messaging communication between Foley and other under-aged teenage boys. That prompted Foley to submit his immediate resignation from Congress and withdraw from his race for re-election. Foley, who was the Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus for Missing & Exploited Children, helped lead the fight for tougher criminal laws to stop online sexual predators who target children. Ironically, those same laws he championed could possibly now be used to send Foley to federal prison. Florida law will allow to replace Foley with a new GOP nominee -- but Foley's name will remain on the ballot. That will force voters to cast a ballot for Foley to have it be counted for the GOP replacement nominee. Further, the new candidate would not be able to convert any existing state campaign account into a federal account for the race because Florida candidates may accept corporate contributions while federal candidates are explicitly barred from accepting that same money. Because of all of this, wealthy venture capitalist and former Republican Tim Mahoney must now be rated the likely winner of this CD-16 seat in November. In directly related -- and further disturbing news -- it appears Congressman Rodney Alexander (R-LA) promptly notified the Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) and the House Republican Leadership ten months ago of Foley's inappropriate communications with the Louisiana boy. Hastert apparently buried the sordid (and possibly criminal) matter entirely until it resurfaced on Friday. It looks like Speaker Hastert may have some serious explaining to do about why the Leadership protected this apparent pedophile.
Posted by Ron Gunzburger - 09.30.06
FREE SPEECH ZONE.
Your space to pontificate on anything and everything (except for the Foley scandal).
Posted by Ron Gunzburger - 09.30.06
Entry Filed under: Contributions, In the News, politics