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WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader John Boehner and other Republican leaders should resign if they knew about a Florida GOP congressman's inappropriate e-mails to a 16-year-old congressional page "and did nothing," Rep. Sherrod Brown said Sunday during his TV debate with Sen. Mike DeWine on Meet the Press.

Brown echoed the comments of Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., in Sunday's New York Times.

At issue is whether Boehner, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other GOP leaders knew last spring about the e-mails Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., had sent to the boy. Boehner indicated early Friday to the Washington Post that he knew in late spring and told Hastert, but later retracted that statement, saying he could not be sure he had spoken with Hastert. Boehner could not be reached Sunday for comment.

Hastert on Sunday requested that the Justice Department conduct an investigation into Foley's e-mails to teenage pages. In a statement, Hastert said a Louisiana congressman called a Hastert staffer in fall 2005 to express concern about an e-mail exchange between Foley and the page. Hastert's staff contacted the clerk of the House of Representatives, and a meeting was held between the clerk, Foley and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the congressional page board. Both men urged Foley to stop contact with the page, the statement said.

"No one in the Speaker's office was made aware of the sexually explicit text messages which press reports had been directed to another individual until they were revealed in the press and on the Internet this week," Hastert's office said.

During Sunday's Meet the Press debate, DeWine fell short of calling for GOP leadership to step down, but called the situation "horrible."

"I think there has to be a full investigation of who knew what and when they knew it," he said.