Wu Controversy Edges Congress Toward Once-a-Month Sex Scandal Pattern

Yet another congressman has announced his resignation after being accused of sexual improprieties. According to The Telegraph, 56-year-old Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) admitted sexual contact with the 18-year-old daughter of a longtime friend but says it was consensual. Wu's own children are 11 and 13. Although Wu denies misconduct in the sexual encounter with a teen, he said he would resign to fight the serious allegations.

This is not Wu's first scandal in Congress. In late 2010, he raised eyebrows with a spate of strange behavior, including sending a woman a photo of himself posing in a tiger suit and delivering a "belligerent monologue" to a friendly crowd. The Oregonian reports that episode led to six staff member resignations and caused speculation about his mental stability. Wu also bypassed security at an airport and was suspected of sending female staff members emails, purportedly from his children, during four days of erratic behavior.

Wu's scandal-induced resignation follows those of several other Congress members this year. At the current pace of its members' sex scandals, the nation appears to be heading toward a Congressional Sex Scandal a Month pace.

The congressional calendar of sex scandal resignations for 2011 prior to Wu's announcement includes:

June: Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) resigned after reportedly transmitting an explicit photo of his genitals to a woman and engaging in phone sex from his congressional office.

May: Sen. John Ensign (D-Nev.) resigned during an ethics investigation into a marital affair with a campaign staff member. After the affair became public, Ensign fired both the campaign staffer and her husband; his parents then paid the couple $96,000 as a "gift," and the husband secured a job at a firm run by top Ensign advisers, according to the Washington Post.

February: Rep. Christopher Lee (R-N.Y.) resigned after the shirtless photo he sent to a woman he met on Craigslist went viral. Although married and parent to a young child, Lee also sent flirtatious emails falsely identifying himself and claiming he was divorced.

While this year's spate of congressional sex scandals seems over-the-top, sex scandals in Congress are nothing new. As far back as 1903, House Speaker David Henderson (R-Iowa) was forced to resign when his sexual relationship with a senator's daughter came to light.

The 1970s saw a series of entertaining congressional sex scandals, including the case of Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.), who in 1974 was cavorting with a stripper known as Fanne Fox when police stopped his car near the Jefferson Memorial at 2 a.m. Fox made both a media splash and a literal splash, jumping into the Tidal Basin in an effort to escape detection.

The mid-to-late 1970s House sex scandals also brought down Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio), who gave a federal job to a woman who claimed her main responsibility was to have sex with him, and Rep. Fred Richmond (D-N.Y.), who was arrested for soliciting sex with a 16-year-old boy, among others.