Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned his House seat in 2006 amid a scandal over his sending of salacious Internet messages to male teens who had worked as congressional pages, said Tuesday he has decided not to run for mayor of West Palm Beach.
Foley had been publicly weighing a decision to seek the mayor’s office but announced on his radio show that after talking with his family, it wasn’t the right choice.
“I have come to the conclusion that now is not the right time to re-enter public life,” he said.
Criminal investigations ended without charges.
That controversy has been continually rehashed in discussions of his possible run. Foley said he reached his decision after conversations with his partner and his family.
“I’m at the stage I have to think of them too,” he said.
Foley, a Republican, was considered a political pariah after the page scandal broke before the 2006 election. His seat was ultimately won by a Democrat.
The revelations on Foley kept coming. His attorney announced the politician was gay, an alcoholic and had been molested by a priest as a teenage altar boy in Florida. He then checked himself into an Arizona facility for what his attorneys said was treatment of “alcoholism and other behavioral problems.”
In recent years, he has hosted a radio show and run a consignment shop, not in hiding as he was in the days after the scandal first surfaced. He was even seen at a campaign event for Gov.-elect Rick Scott the day before Election Day.
