Nearly half of Utahns say that Hastert should resign

Half of all Utahns along the Wasatch Front think current U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert should resign his leadership post over the sex scandal involving a former GOP representative and congressional pages.

A new survey for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV by Dan Jones & Associates asked citizens about the scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned two weeks ago.

For some time, Foley, who now says he is gay, had been sending salacious e-mails to current and former pages.

Jones found that 49 percent of Utahns think that Hastert, R-Ill., should resign. Jones polled in counties that contain most of Utah's population — Salt Lake, Davis, Utah, Weber, Tooele and Wasatch counties.

Twenty-nine percent said the speaker should not resign and 22 percent didn't know, Jones found.

Pages are high-school-age teens selected to move to Washington, D.C., and spend a year working in the House and Senate. They live in segregated housing and are overseen by a special committee of representatives and senators. Because of their age, most pages are legally still children, which in part led to the general outrage that a congressman was sending sexually explicit e-mails to some of the pages.

One former page, who is now over 21, has admitted that he had sex with Foley as an adult, or older than 18.

Hastert has steadfastly maintained that he personally didn't know of Foley's e-mails. And Hastert says he won't resign now, and will wait to see what several investigations turn up.

The Foley scandal may ensure that Democrats retake a majority in the House in the Nov. 7 general election. If that happens, Hastert would no longer be speaker. Some GOP strategists predict that even if Republicans keep control of the House, Hastert may be forced out of the speakership post by disgruntled GOP House members.

Former staffers to Foley and other leading House Republicans have said that several years ago they personally warned the speaker's office about Foley and his "inappropriate" conversations and connections with male pages.

But Hastert, R-Ill., says that he knew of only one incident where the parents of a male page contacted House GOP leaders and said Foley's advances to their son were problematic. A leader, not Hastert, went to Foley and warned him not to have any further contact with that specific former page.