1983 Congressional page sex scandal

The 1983 Congressional Page sex scandal was a political scandal in the United States involving members of the United States House of Representatives.

On July 14, 1983, the House Ethics Committee recommended that Rep. Dan Crane (R-IL) and Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) be reprimanded for having engaged in sexual relationships with minors, specifically 17-year-old congressional pages. Washington, D.C., law specifies an age of consent of 16, meaning that the relationships were legal; however the committee felt "any sexual relationship between a member of the House of Representatives and a congressional page, or any sexual advance by a member to a page, represents a serious breach of duty." The Congressional Report found that in 1980, a year after entering office, Crane had sex four or five times at his suburban apartment with a female page and in 1973, the year he entered office, Studds invited a male page, who testified he felt no ill will towards Studds, to his Georgetown apartment and later on a two-week trip to Portugal. Both representatives admitted to the charges.

On July 20, 1983, the House voted by a supermajority to revise the reprimand recommendation to censure, a more extreme measure. Censure had never previously been used in a case of sexual misconduct. The motion to censure the two House members was introduced by Rep. Robert H. Michel (R-IL), the Republican House Minority Leader. Aides later said that Michel proposed this bill to head off a move by Republicans to expel the two legislators. Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was one of the leaders of the calls for the expulsion of Crane and Studds.

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