In the summer of 1980 I was a sixteen year old boy, and I had the good fortune to be appointed as a congressional page in the House. I'd like to add my insights from long ago on the current situation.
First, the job of a page is quite routine. Mostly you deliver messages and packages from one office to another. You regularly visit the floor of the House, which is undoubtedly a very cool place to be. Every now and then you get to view something important, such as an interesting debate or a well-attended press conference. Even more rarely you get to talk with a member of the House. (In particular I remember two short conversations I had, one with Tip O'Neil and one with George Bush the elder (who was running for vice president at the time). Tip asked me to sit with him while we rode on the underground subway and we chatted. I got my picture taken with George. Maybe I still have the picture somewhere.)
Most members don't pay attention to pages. (Why should they?) You remember the members who do. In particular I remember Bob Bauman, a republican from Maryland, who would occassionally come to the page table in the back of the house to chat. He was a friendly guy. (He was also a master of the rules of the house. Much happens on the floor by unanimous consent. I remember him tieing up the House business completely by not allowing unanimous consent. He wanted some legislative action that the leadership was not allowing. He managed to do this while keeping a good humor.) He was an entertaining guy.
In October of 1980 (just a few months later) Mr. Bauman was arrested with a sixteen year old male prostitute. He lost his reelection campaign, not surprisingly.
Looking back you might wonder about why he was more interested in chatting with pages than other members. I have no salacious details to add, such that he propositioned me or some other page, but it is reasonable to ask the question. The page leadership was also friendly with him, and I certainly never received any warning about him or anyone else.
Second, you need to remember who the pages are. This is a pure patronage position. (My family lived next door to a long time supporter of one of the most senior members in the House, which is how I got an appointment.) Most pages are the children of party regulars and long-time contributors. Many of them are true believers, no matter which side of the aisle on which they sit. (At sixteen many people reflect their parents' political views.) This means that republican pages and their parents are much less likely to be forthcoming with details negative to the republican party than you might expect. (Perhaps parallel to altar boys and priests. These are the believers and the children of believers.)
Finally, one particular episode. There was one female page who was, shall we say, rather comely. OK, hot. The summer uniform for pages does not include a jacket, just a white shirt and blue trousers or skirt. Well, one day this page wore a nice white shirt. It, however, was backless. I remember she deliverd a message to some office. Very soon after she dropped it off the young men in that office called the page desk asking for information about her (name, age, ...) and asking for her to be sent back to that office - clearly they had some other critical message that needed to be delivered. The page supervisor sent her home and told her never to wear that particular shirt again.