OUR FOLEY GAVE TO THAT FOLEY

NAME SOUNDS FAMILIAR

Foley & Lardner fills Foley’s Larder

By Michael Horne

The Foley & Lardner Political Fund, Inc. is the Washington-based political committee of the venerable Milwaukee law and lobbying firm.

Foley & Lardner, which prefers to be called simply, “Foley,” [except in Boston, where that’s banned], has made six contributions totaling $5,750 to the campaigns of former Rep. Mark Foley, the disgraced congressman from Florida.

Milwaukeeworld called the firm to inquire about the donations. The woman who answers the phone over at Foley said her boss wasn’t in right now, but added that Mark Foley is not a blood relative of Foley & Lardner.

The donations to the cause of the Florida Republican ran from August, 1997 to December, 2005, or roughly for the time it would take a potential Congressional pageboy to go from age 10 (too young) to an all-grown-up 18 (too old).

The only other Milwaukee outfit worth mentioning as a Foley contributor was the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company Federal Political Action Committee. The giant firm’s connection with the former congressman dates all the way to the last century. Rep. Foley aroused sufficient interest in the PAC that it was enticed to contribute $1,000 to his campaign on January 26, 1999. NML then pumped out another grand on November 8^th of that non-election year, and blew its wad in May, 2001, with another thousand dollar contribution that spewed forth, as if by magic, from the inexhaustible fountains concealed within the hard granite columns -- capped in their Corinthian glory -- that proudly adorn the façade of NML’s headquarters building downtown.

Then, spent, NML walked away from the relationship, and ceased the shower of gold that had cascaded into Foley’s bulging purse.

A PAGE FROM THE PAST

By Michael Horne

While sorting through my past one day, I came upon the United States Capitol Page School Handbook. I had sent off for it sometime during my junior year at Homestead, when I thought a stint in the nation’s capital at such a prestigious-sounding institution might give me a leg up on the dazzling career trajectory that lay before me, not to mention get me out of Mequon.

One of my dad’s buddies had a sister who was the home secretary for Rep. Henry S. Reuss, for whom I had spent some time during the summer registering voters, and being paid for it. I took a trip down to the Brumder Building (now Germania Building), where the congressman’s office was located, and indicated my interest. Alas, the page slot had been pledged to another, and I added the episode to my catalogue of life’s disappointments.

I did keep the Handbook, though, and thought I would share some of it with you, since the topic has some resonance with recent developments in Congress.

My copy was published in 1965, and was a number of years out of date when I received it. Congress itself was struggling to keep up with the times, since under the category of “Dress,” the reader is informed that “The wearing of traditional knickers has been abandoned.” All pages were required to wear a navy blue suit (long trousers) white shirt, black socks, black tie and black shoes. (Apparently underwear was an option.)

There were seven grounds for suspension or expulsion from the school. First among these was “Immoral conduct,” followed by “indecent language,” “violent or pointed opposition to authority,” “persistent disobedience or disorder,” “habitual tardiness,” “unauthorized absence,” and, finally, “uncleanly conditions of person or clothing.” A stinky page boy is such a turn-off!

(Interestingly, none of the reasons for suspending or expelling a page are sufficient to do the same to a congressman or senator.)

The school had a library (known as the Library of Congress, where classes are held) but did not have dormitories during that time. “No dormitory facilities are available for pages. Most pages live in nearby rooming houses. The school office maintains a list of rooming and boarding facilities.” I wonder what unspoken scandal led to the establishment of a dormitory, and whatever became of the kindly Capitol Hill bachelors who would open their homes to boys aged 14 – 18. (There were no girl pages then.)

Pages were chosen because of their age, ability to do the job well, ability to keep good grades, a record of good conduct and, ominously, “his sponsor’s tenure in office.”

In another nod to the times, “In the Supreme Court, the former rule of a page being no taller than the high-backed chairs of the Justices is no longer enforced.” Score one for the tall people!

The page tradition started in 1827, according to the book, and in 1841 a select committee of the 27^th Congress made this comment about pages, and how they got to become pages:

“Members frequently take interest in a promising boy, or have their sympathies awakened by his orphan or destitute situation and press the officer of the House to engage him in this service.”

Also, according to the same committee, it was the practice to grant an extra $250 to pages at the end of their service as special compensation. According to the handbook, “It appears the pages performed extra services in the folding room, at which they were ‘sometimes occupied by night as well as by day.’”

Pages? Extra Services? Folding Room? Night and Day? How can I resist?

Q. “Why don’t Senators use bookmarks?”

A. “Because they prefer bent-over pages.”

THE LAW BE DAMNED! -- REP. LASEE URGES ARMING TEACHERS

What's the law? For Rep. Frank Lasee it is something to be changed or circumvented if it gets in his way.
Milwaukeeworld readers remember that the Father of TABOR is also the father of a child born out of wedlock and that he wrote the mother of his child asking to have his support payments reduced.
Now, the Republican assemblyman has hatched a crackpot idea calling for arming teachers. It's a front page story right now on CNN.com . Arming teachers and principals works in Thailand and Israel, he says, and why not do the same in Thiensville and Ixonia?
Thailand is the site of bloody violent episodes with Muslim separatists, the CNN story tells us. Thiensville, it need hardly be repeated, is surrounded on all sides by the much-larger Mequon, and tensions between Catholics and Lutherans have been simmering under the surface since the first boatload of Pomeranian settlers arrived there in 1839. Eerily reminiscent of the schism between Shiite and Sunni Muslims are the irreconcilably divided sects of the Missouri Synod Lutherans and their Wisconsin Synod counterparts. Trinity Lutheran School shall become a fortress -- and not just a fortress of faith!
Ixonia has had its share of factionalism ever since the Town of Union was rent asunder in 1846, in an event that anticipated the Civil War that would one day divide the Union itself. The residents there could not agree on a name for the new town, so they had schoolgirl Mary Piper pull letters out of a hat until a suitable town name could be fashioned out of them.
There are a few fine points, and as usual with Lasee, facts in the way. For instance, Thai teachers are considered government agents, much like soldiers, and it is the Third World, after all. Israeli teachers are not armed, in fact, but the guards at the schools are.
And then there is the looming presence of a little document called the United States Constitution, and the laws formed under its umbrella by the government.
Lasee figures the Wisconsin legislature will be able to find a way around a pesky federal law that bans guns on school grounds.
Well, he got his name in the headlines, and that's what counts.
--Michael Horne