House page program ends Aug. 31

WASHINGTON — After nearly 200 years, the House page program that allowed high school students to serve as messengers and learn about Congress is ending, rendered obsolete by the Internet and email in cost-cutting times. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday that the $5 million annual expense can no longer be justified when messages and other materials are delivered electronically. The blue-jacketed pages, a common sight in the House since the 1820s, now have little to do, according to the two leaders. The program will end by Aug. 31. Before the Internet and personal electronic devices, pages “crisscrossed the congressional complex each day delivering countless messages and documents to members, committees and leadership offices,” the two leaders said in a letter to House members — delivered via email. Two studies begun in 2008 found that while the young aides were once “stretched to the limit delivering large numbers of urgently needed documents and other packages,” they now are “rarely called upon for such deliveries, as most documents are now transmitted electronically.” Today, the pages “are severely underutilized,” the letter said. Boehner and Pelosi wrote that while they are “mindful of the special place their unique experience holds in the memories of the young Americans privileged to serve as pages over the years, our decision to close the program reflects two current realities: Changes in technology have obviated the need for most Page services and the program’s high costs are difficult to justify, especially in light of diminished benefits to the House.” The Senate page program will continue. While the page program usually functioned as a government learning experience, it had its share of occasional headline-grabbing scandals. In 1983, the House censured Republican Dan Crane of Illinois and Democrat Gerry Studds of Massachusetts for sexual relationships with pages; Crane with a young woman and Studds with a young man. More recently, in 2006, Republican Mark Foley of Florida resigned in disgrace after it was learned he had sexually suggestive e-mail communications with former male pages. The pages have their own school, with a regular faculty, and live in a dormitory near the Capitol. A study calculated the per-page cost for a two-semester school year at $69,000-$80,000 annually, depending on the size of each semester’s class.