Schiff's Censure Not Politically Fatal
Massachusetts Voters Rewarded a Pederast Congressman
The U.S. House of Representatives censured Representative Adam Schiff (CA-30) on June 21, 2023, for his role in propagating the Russia hoax. While censure in the House usually damages a political career that is not always the case. Some jurisdictions support the politician regardless of their misdeeds. We look back four decades when Massachusetts 10th congressional district voters ignored the censure of their representative for having sex with an underage boy.
News broke in July 1982 that House pages and members of Congress had engaged in sexual activities and drug parties. In 1982, there were about one hundred teens, mostly between fourteen and seventeen years old, who served as pages in the House and Senate. About two-thirds of the pages served in the House. Their responsibilities had varied over the decades. In the early 1980s, they would attend classes during the morning and run errands in the afternoon into the evening for members of the House and Senate.
According to early news reports, a page had come forward alleging members of Congress were “preying on pages.” The teen claimed some staff members were recruiting pages for the congressmen. A former page appeared on a television news program and alleged he had sex on several occasions with a congressman, including in the representative’s Capitol Hill office.[i] Another former page came forward and claimed it was not unheard for a member of Congress and staff members to ply underage pages with alcohol, with the intention of engaging in sexual relations.[ii]
Democratic Representative Louis Stokes of Ohio, who chaired the House Ethics Committee, announced his committee would launch an immediate investigation into the predator claims, but the committee would not investigate the drug allegations.
The House hired Joseph A. Califano, Jr. to serve as the special counsel to investigate the allegations. Califano previously served as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Jimmy Carter.
While the investigation was underway, the House of Representatives revamped the House page system, particularly with respect to living arrangements. An office building was converted into a dormitory where pages would be required to reside. Professional staff was hired to supervise the pages and nightly curfews were established.
After a nearly one-year investigation by Califano, the House Ethics Committee released its findings. Califano reported not finding evidence corroborating allegations made by the two former pages the previous summer. However, he did uncover misconduct involving two House members and a House employee.
Republican Representative Daniel Crane of Illinois had engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year old female page in 1980. Crane and the page gave sworn testimony the pair had engaged in sexual relations on about five occasions in the Congressman’s apartment. The page testified she did not drink any alcohol and that the sex was consensual.
Democratic Representative Gerry Studds of Massachusetts had started an affair with a male page in 1973. Evidence suggested the boy was 16-years old when the affair began. Studds served alcohol to the boy and got him drunk before engaging in sex with him, according to the Ethics Committee report. Studds later took the teen with him on a two-week congressional junket to Europe.[iii]
This was not the first minor-aged boy Studds pursued. The Massachusetts congressman was a sexual predator. According to his own deposition, Studds made sexual advances toward two other underage male pages.
The third adult implicated in the scandal was a House employee. According to Califano, James Howarth, who worked for the House Doorkeeper, engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year old female page in 1980.
Califano recommended the House act on his findings. He urged the immediate firing of Howarth, but he suggested only the lightest punishment for the two politicians. “[N]either expulsion nor censure is warranted” in the cases of Crane and Studds, he argued.
By an 11–1 vote, the House Ethics Committee recommended to the full House that Howarth be fired and the two congressmen be reprimanded. A reprimand is the most lenient form of punishment for a House member. It is a rebuke of the actions by an offending member that is registered by a vote of the full House. Reprimand could include the mere adoption of a report detailing misconduct.
There was a groundswell of support in the House to reprimand Crane and Studds and to put the entire episode behind the elected body. However, a small number of congressmen urged consideration of stiffer penalties, including expulsion. Republican Congressmen Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Chalmers Wylie of Ohio spoke for the need of tougher sanctions against the two congressmen. Both men would have been fired from their jobs if they were police officers or teachers, Gingrich observed.
Some representatives argued the humiliation of having been caught was more than enough punishment. Republican Floyd Spence of South Carolina said, “The public disclosure of the facts of these cases has already placed an indelible stain on the reputations of these members.” Democrat Parren Mitchell of Maryland argued against censure. He said the two offending congressmen had “[a]lready [been] embarrassed, already humiliated, already stripped” of committee assignments, and to censure them only degraded the integrity of the House of Representatives.[iv]
After considerable debate, the House had settled on a compromise offered by Republican Minority Leader Robert Michel of Illinois. Michel introduced a measure for both men to be censured rather than merely reprimanded. Censure is considered a stiffer penalty than reprimand, but it falls far short of expulsion. The full House must record a majority vote censuring the member. Additionally, the member being censured must stand in the well of the House floor and listen while the resolution of censure is read aloud.
On July 20, 1983, the first to be censured was Crane. He was visibly upset as he stood in the well of the House floor, facing the other House members. Crane addressed the House. He announced he had apologized to his wife, family, and friends, and then he apologized to the full House “for the shame I have brought down on this institution.”[v] The resolution was read aloud and a vote in favor of the censure resolution was passed 421–3. Even Crane voted for his own censure.
Studds was the next to face his colleagues. Unlike Crane, Studds struck a defiant tone. A week earlier, Studds declared there was nothing improper about his conduct. “It is not a simple task for any of us to meet adequately the obligations of either public office or private life, let alone both,” he said.[vi]
Studds stood in the House well, as required by House rules, but instead of facing his colleagues, he turned his back toward them while the censure resolution was being read. After the 420–3 vote, Studds returned to his seat where several members of the Massachusetts delegation went over to shake his hand.[vii]
Crane was defeated the following year in the Republican primary. Studds was easily reelected in the Massachusetts 10th congressional district in 1984 and would go on to be reelected five more times before retiring.
Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, Post, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.
His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).
[i] Jay Perkins, “Washington Dateline,” Associated Press, July 1, 1982
[ii] Frank Reynolds, “World News Tonight” (Transcript), ABC News, July 1, 1982.
[iii] Joseph Mianowany, “Rep. Studds Admits Homosexuality,” Associated Press, July 14, 1983.
[iv] Jim Lehrer, “Congressional Page Scandal” (Transcript), McNeil/Lehrer Report, July 20, 1983.
[v] Sandra Evans Teeley, “House Censures Crane and Studds,” Washington Post, July 21, 1983.
[vi] Mianowany, “Rep. Studds Admits Homosexuality.”
[vii] Steven V. Roberts, “House Censures Crane and Studds for Sexual Relations with Pages,” New York Times, July 21, 1983.