Blumenauer asks for help with "new page scandal"

You might have heard of the page scandal in Washington DC recently.

Pages are 15-16 year-old high school students who run errands for House members.

Opening Plenary at the Nat'l Bike Summit

James Koski and Blumenauer Legislative
assistant Katie Drennan

Now Blumenauer says there’s another page scandal brewing. He told the audience at the opening of the Summit that the Page Board has proclaimed that pages are no longer allowed to ride bicycles.

According to Koski, the pages (who serve several week stints in DC) all stay in a dorm that does not have adequate bicycle facilities and the Page Board is, “apparently worried about security and doesn’t want to be responsible for lost bikes.”

I spoke with Blumenauer’s policy aide James Koski about this and he said they plan to write a letter opposing this decision. Congressman Blumenauer also implored the assembled crowd to ask about this on Capitol Hill tomorrow.

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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Carl
Carl
17 years ago

Wow. It’s nice to know that the Page Board is so aware of the challenges their pages face. Maybe they should ban iPods and laptops, too. Those things are always getting stolen.

Attornatus_Oregonensis
Attornatus_Oregonensis
17 years ago

The real motivation here comes from Republican House members, who want to be able to cruise by the dorms and offer “rides” to pages who would otherwise walk in the cold or rain. 😉

Fritz
17 years ago

Back in the 80s, it was our representatives getting in trouble with the female pages.

bArbaroo
bArbaroo
17 years ago

Interesting that they are chosing to discourage bikes rather than improve the bike parking.

GiveMeABreak
GiveMeABreak
17 years ago

This is all Blumenauer has to do right now, and ask for his constituency to speak out about given the events of the last week, month, year, 6 years? What a waste of a safe Democratic seat in Congress. At least he knows how stupid his constituency really is when this is the kind of thing he brings back to talk about.

Jessica Roberts
Jessica Roberts
17 years ago

Don’t feed the troll.

Fritz
16 years ago

Another page scandal again, so soon after last year\’s deal with Foley?