Directory that listed Emerson on page board in 1999 incorrect

With scandal swirling around the congressional page program in Washington, U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau and her staff have been fielding numerous questions about a privately published directory from 1999 that lists her as a member of the House of Representatives Page Board.

The listing, however, is wrong. A Southeast Missourian review of the House Journal, the official record of daily actions in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Congressional Directory, the official listing of members, committees and congressional boards, shows Emerson, a Republican, never served on the page board.

The page board's members have come under fire across the nation as government investigators and journalists peel back the layers of the scandal involving salacious messages from former U.S. representative Mark Foley, R-Florida, to male pages.

In one article from Oct. 4, the Washington Post reported that male pages were warned as early as 1995 to avoid Foley. Other reports have said that Foley, while drunk, attempted to enter the page dormitory in 2000 but was turned away by police. Capitol police, however, have said they have no records of the incident, according to the Post.

The first suggestion that Emerson was on the page board in 1999 came from a liberal political blog, waynemadsenreport.com. When asked about the report last week, Emerson said she had never been on the page board. The Southeast Missouri obtained pages from the Congressional Directory, the official publication listing members of Congress and their duties, indicating she was never appointed to the board.

Activists this week accused the Southeast Missourian of protecting Emerson. Alan Journet, a Southeast Missouri State University professor of biology, e-mailed the newspaper asking whether the Southeast Missourian and Emerson were "conspiring to cover up the facts concerning her involvement in with the program? If so, why?"

Journet cited a private directory, called the Congressional Yellow Book, which reported in its spring 1999 edition that Emerson was one of three House members on the page board for the 106th Congress. However, the official Congressional Directory for the 106th Congress, which sat from January 1999 to January 2001, shows on page 505 that the congressional members of the page board were Reps. Sue Kelly, R-New York, Jim Kolbe, R-Arizona, and Dale Kildee, D-Michigan.

And an online search of the House Journals for the 106th Congress confirms the directory listing.

On Feb. 11, 1999, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, appointed Kelly and Kolbe. The same day, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Missouri, appointed Kildee.

In addition to the online searches, the Southeast Missourian contacted the House Committee on Administration and asked staff members to search for any records showing Emerson served on the page board.

"We have gone through the House Journal and the Congressional Record, and we don't find any appointment references regarding the congresswoman," said Salley Collins, committee press secretary. "Therefore, it is my understanding it is a typographical error on the part of the Congressional Yellow Book."

There was an Emerson on the page board during the 1990s, but it was the late Bill Emerson, not Jo Ann Emerson. Bill Emerson, congressman from Southeast Missouri from 1981 to 1996, was chairman of the House of Representatives Page Board when he died. Bill Emerson was also a page as a young man, serving in that capacity in 1954 when Puerto Rican separatists sprayed gunfire in the chamber.

His wife, Jo Ann Emerson, took over the 8th District seat in a special election in November 1996 but did not take his place on the page board. According to congressional records, Bill Emerson was replaced on the page board by U.S. Rep. Tillie Fowler, R-Florida.

The Congressional Yellow Book is a quarterly publication, said Imogene Akins-Hutchinson, vice president and senior editor of Leadership Directories Inc. The spring 1999 directory was the first complete directory for the 106th Congress. The deadline for that edition was in early March, Akins-Hutchinson said. The listing in that book was changed to reflect the actual appointed members for the 106th Congress in the summer 1999 edition, she said.

Information for the book is gathered by questionnaires sent to Congress. If the questionnaires are not returned, information is sought by telephone, she said.

The editor of that edition is no longer on staff, and no records remain showing how information was received, she said. Akins-Hutchinson wouldn't say the information is wrong, but she didn't completely vouch for it, either. "I would think it was accurate on the best information we received," she said.

Emerson and her office have been receiving an increasing number of calls this week as the page from the Congressional Yellow Book has made the rounds by e-mail, campaign manager Josh Haynes said. Emerson said Thursday that the mistake isn't unusual, and she isn't upset by the calls questioning her role.

"If I had ever thought in 1999 to look at the Yellow Book, they would have corrected it," she said.

Emerson has criticized Republican leaders for not moving earlier to deal with Foley and also criticized her party for trying to blame Democrats for the timing of the scandal. Emerson also said she is pleased with the speed of the House Ethics Committee investigation.

In an interview Thursday, Journet said he based his cover-up charge on the Congressional Yellow Book entry alone and didn't seek to verify the information of the private publication. And, he said, he doesn't trust the Southeast Missourian to look into details of Emerson's activities.

"We have no trust in the Southeast Missourian's integrity," he said.

The Southeast Missourian's editor, R. Joe Sullivan, said the newspaper seeks to report facts, not protect any favored politicians. "We take great care to check out our stories, and when our information is in question, we welcome information that can be verified and reported to our readers," he said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

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