WASHINGTON — When Patricia Duran was getting ready to take a coveted spot as a page in the U.S. House of Representatives last summer, some of her friends teased her.
"They said, 'Oh, the only thing we've heard about D.C. is Monica Lewinsky,' " said Duran, 17, now a senior at Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles.
Duran's friends may have joked about the onetime White House intern involved in a sex scandal with President Clinton, but as it turns out, the congressional page program has been plunged into scandal. The revelation that Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) sent sexually explicit messages to at least one underage boy who served as a page led to Foley's resignation on Friday and to an FBI investigation.
But Duran's Washington experience, she said Monday, was a rewarding one that left her with a desire to run for office. That reaction seems typical of the hundreds of young people who have passed through the program.
For more than 175 years, youngsters have worked as messengers and errand-runners on Capitol Hill. The page program has endured cycles of criticism and reform and, in the 1980s, weathered a sex scandal that led to the formal censure of two House lawmakers. Over the years, it has become more structured and academically demanding, while retaining its up-close-and-personal appeal.
Duran said that while working in the Democratic cloakroom -- a members-only inner sanctum for lawmakers just off the House floor -- she got a candid view of the daily routines of politicians. "That's where they eat meals, where they answer phone calls, where they say: 'You vote for my bill, and I'll vote for yours,' " said Duran, who was sponsored by Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles).
"I was behind closed doors, and I got to see it all."
And, Duran said, she saw no inappropriate behavior by lawmakers or pages. What Duran came away with was an appreciation for the intricate workings of democracy.
"So many more people are actually involved in making the whole round-about system work than just politicians," she said.
According to a history of the program by Congressional Quarterly, the first Senate page, 9-year-old Grafton Dulany Hanson, was appointed by Sen. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts in 1829.
For more than 100 years, only boys were allowed to be pages. Republican Sen. Jacob Javits of New York broke the gender barrier by appointing the first female page in 1970 -- she had to wait another year for the full Senate to vote its approval. Five years earlier, Javits had broken the race barrier by appointing the first African American page.
