US: Democrats have demanded an investigation into the conduct of Mark Foley (52), a Florida Republican who sent sexually explicit messages to teenage congressional pages, and whether the Republican leadership did enough to stop him. Mr Foley resigned from the House of Representatives on Friday following the publication of e-mails he sent to a 16-year-old boy who had worked at Congress and instant messages he sent to other teenagers.
Republican leaders have admitted they knew about the e-mails in autumn 2005 and told Mr Foley to stop communicating with the boy. They have set up a toll-free telephone hotline for other pages - high-school pupils who run errands for congressmen and attend daily civics classes - to report incidents of inappropriate behaviour by members of Congress.
Democratic congressman John Murtha yesterday called for the House ethics committee to investigate what he described as the "outrageous" response of senior Republicans to Mr Foley's actions. "We have an obligation to protect these young pages . . . It really makes me nervous that they might have tried to cover this up," he said.
Mr Foley, who was co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, has refused in the past to answer questions about his sexual orientation and has opposed some civil rights for gays and lesbians.
"The fact that I'm not married has led many people to speculate but I'm not going to be dragged into the gutter by these rumourmongers," he said in 2003.
Mr Foley started writing to the boy, who had worked for a Louisiana congressman, in summer 2005 but the teenager soon became uneasy about the tone of the e-mails, particularly when Mr Foley asked him to send a picture of himself.
Instant messages Mr Foley sent to other current and former pages were more overtly sexual and could lead to criminal charges. In one exchange, using the nickname Maf54 (his initials and year of birth), Mr Foley advised the teenager to "strip down".
In another, when the boy said he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, Maf54 replied: "Love to slip them off of you." In another, he asked the boy: "Do I make you a little horny?" The scandal, which erupted as Congress broke up for the final weeks of the mid-term election campaign, is a blow to Republicans as they struggle to retain control of the Senate and the House of Representatives next month.
The party will select a new candidate for Mr Foley's affluent Palm Beach constituency but Mr Foley's name will remain on the ballot and Democrats believe they now have a chance to win the seat. The scandal has pushed terrorism off the front pages.
There was little sympathy for Mr Foley among Republicans this weekend, but Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, who is gay, described the story as sad.
"These are the pressures of being in the closet. It makes you do dumb things," he said.