More Fears Senate Pages Won’t Be Safe Around Roy Moore (TWEETS)



Late last week, veteran Republican consultant Steve Schmidt asked a question that few people had asked about the prospect of Roy Moore going to the Senate–what was being done to keep the Senate pages safe?

This isn’t an idle concern. Given the very credible accusations that Moore molested women and pursued girls young enough to be his daughter, we have to hope that someone is at least thinking about a plan to protect the high school juniors who spend a semester serving as Senate messengers and aides while learning how our government works.

Well, it turns out that at least one Senator shares Schmidt’s concerns–Cory Booker. Just before heading to Alabama to campaign for Moore’s Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, the New Jersey Democrat threw down the gauntlet to Moore.

Booker was referring to a speech Moore gave on Tuesday while campaigning alongside Steve Bannon. Moore, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, took a swipe at preparations for the armed forces to allow transgender Americans to enlist.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If I’m in a foxhole, I don’t want to know if this guy next to me is wondering if he’s a woman or a man or is flipped back and forth. That’s not a military–we need a strong military.”

So a guy who has been credibly accused of molesting teenagers is worried about serving alongside a transgender soldier? No wonder Booker was upset.

Later on Saturday, Booker revealed that a number of former pages were unnerved at the thought of Moore winning on Tuesday, and shared an op-ed in The Washington Post from one of them.

The article was written by Madison Haddix, who served as a Senate page from Tennessee in her junior year. She fears that if Moore wins, it will represent a betrayal of “the trust that young people have in our leaders.”

Haddix recalled that even though she worked with a number of Senators whose political beliefs were radically different from hers. She is a staunch Democrat, but was appointed by Lamar she had a “mutual respect” for them. She was aware that the goal of the page program was to ensure that “the future generation learns from the present, and the present learns from the future.”


For that reason, Haddix said, pages look up to the Senators they serve. She recalled seeing Bernie Sanders give a speech on health care, and James Lankford speak on the national debt. She also remembered the “pride” she felt when Joe Biden stopped to talk with the cafeteria staff, and was in “awe” when Tammy Duckworth and Kamala Harris were sworn in.

Haddix then wrote about what the pages would see in a Senator Roy Moore.

“If Moore joins the Senate, each time he makes a speech, 30 pairs of eyes will be looking up at him from the rostrum — 30 16-year-olds who should be able to look up to him as a mentor, who should be guided by his actions. Whoever fills the seat from Alabama should be able to look at the pages and see hope and innocence. But Moore does not appear to see children that way. How can Moore be expected to make decisions with the interests of children at heart when he stands accused of betraying children? How can he learn from pages, and how can pages learn from him, when he is accused of viewing girls our age through such a twisted lens?”

Haddix went on to say that if Moore wins on Tuesday, it would damage “the hope and trust my generation should be able to have” in our nation’s leaders. No doubt other former pages are thinking the same thing.


It has been amply established that Moore is not just an Alabama matter, contrary to what Bannon and other Republicans would have you believe. But this is yet more proof that Americans at large have every right to be concerned. We should not have to ask if we can trust our Senators around kids. One would hope that those in a position to address this matter are at least thinking about how to do so.

(featured image courtesy Moore’s Facebook)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.