Congress
Tom Kean Jr. kept his depression a secret. Colleagues are questioning that decision.
When Rep. Tom Kean Jr. revealed Tuesday his extended absence from the House was due to inpatient treatment for depression, he ended months of speculation but also fueled a delicate conversation: Just how much privacy are elected officials entitled to?
The New Jersey Republican offered only scant details about his condition during the four months he went missing. And while colleagues of both parties expressed sympathy for his mental health challenges and gratitude that he has now returned, many hedged their comments by saying Kean could and perhaps should have said something earlier.
“Certainly everyone has a right to privacy and to health care and to the mental health care that they need,” said Rep. Maxine Dexter, an Oregon Democrat and physician, while adding that members are obligated to be “transparent and forthcoming.”
“You give up the right to privacy in a certain respect when you run for office and represent that many people,” she said. “And so I do challenge our colleagues to be more transparent when these things happen.”
Even Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Kean should have said more sooner at a news conference Tuesday: “If it were me, I would have been more specific about that, and I encouraged him to be.”
Kean appeared to anticipate that he might be criticized for saying so little as he missed more than 100 votes — no matter how sensitive his diagnosis might be. In the floor speech he gave upon returning Tuesday, he described himself as a “private person by nature” and said he “was still trying to understand what was happening” when his office first attributed his absence to a “medical issue.”
“When I said I hoped to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it,” Kean said. “Those were the best estimates the doctors could provide.”
Other parts of his approach, however, raised eyebrows. His social media accounts continued as if he was still at the Capitol, fueling more questions about his malady. Reports of an empty house back in New Jersey and an aide’s offhand comment that there were “no cameras” where Kean was only added to the speculation.
Many fellow House members spoke carefully Tuesday about Kean’s condition while also making clear that it should not excuse him from accountability for how his absence was handled.
“I think many of us have a tremendous degree of empathy and understanding for a mental health diagnosis,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in an interview. “There’s a valid discussion here about when it comes to the volume of an absence, what is our responsibility to our constituents in communicating around that?”
Attitudes and practices surrounding mental health care in big-time politics have been transformed since 1972, when Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri lost his No. 2 spot on the Democratic presidential ticket after his bouts with depression were publicized.
While the subject remains taboo among some, more lawmakers have talked openly about their mental health struggles as the disease has grown in prevalence among the general public.
When Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was hospitalized for clinical depression three years ago, he almost immediately explained his health issues and offered routine public updates.
Fetterman’s transparency was met with plaudits and empathy from his congressional colleagues at the time, but he later said in an interview that he had regrets about opening up.
He blamed “people in the media” for having “weaponized” his illness, he told the New York Times a year ago: “It shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I got help.”
Others have been similarly candid. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) opened up in 2023 about overcoming a debilitating mix of anxiety, depression and the side effects of drugs used to treat them. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Becca Balint (D-Vt.) have spoken about their struggles, too.
Torres quickly responded to Kean’s announcement in a social media post, noting that while he sympathized, those in elected positions also have “a duty of transparency.”
Balint in an interview questioned whether staying silent on the issue for months served to “perpetuate the stigma” around mental health challenges.
“I’m glad that he is being open in public about it,” she said, while adding, “I wish that he had done that months ago, to even just make just a general statement.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, who had questioned Kean’s whereabouts before his announcement, was among the small number of members who were not so understanding and called his long absence “ridiculous.”
“I think there’s this dose of depression that comes with every congressional pin that’s issued,” the Colorado Republican said. “Life is depressing. Life is hard. Get to work.”
While few Americans can afford to miss months of work for mental health treatment like Kean, depression-related work absences have become a major issue as the prevalence of the disease in the U.S. has only grown. Depressed workers are many times more likely to miss work because of the condition but are also less likely to self-disclose depression issues.
Several Democrats and Republicans were supportive of Kean immediately after his announcement and applauded him for coming forward with the diagnosis.
“It’s helpful to the American people and to others with depression to be able to acknowledge that this is what’s happening and it’s not a sin, he’s not a bad person, he’s not a weak person,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a co-chair of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus, said in an interview. “It’s a brain disease, and I want him to be well.”
Beyer also said he was “disappointed” that Kean “felt he couldn’t disclose it,” though said he does not know the fellow congressman well and did not wish to criticize him.
Beyer, who has been open about his son’s schizophrenia diagnosis, said mental health issues should not be a “secret thing tucked away in the closet.”
Kean, for his part, let very few fellow politicians into his confidence. The two other Republicans in the New Jersey delegation, Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, said they had not heard from Kean in months despite calling and texting him out of concern.
Despite what Van Drew described as “radio silence,” the two other New Jersey Republicans defended Kean’s decision to not reveal his diagnosis.
“I was just concerned for him,” Van Drew said. “When you go through something like that, you … choose how you’re going to reveal it. So he decided to do it this way, and that’s fine. It’s his decision.”
Smith said he was optimistic Kean’s public disclosure even now could help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues. Asked about how much privacy members of Congress are entitled to on personal matters, he said, “There’s a balance.”
“He thought this is probably the best way to do it, and so I respected it,” Smith said.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), a Navy veteran who has been open about having post-traumatic stress disorder, said in an interview he was among a select few who knew months in advance about Kean’s diagnosis. He defended Kean’s decision to keep mum.
“If you’ve got a medical condition, that’s up to you to disclose,” he said. “Anybody that’s saying they should have done this or that — really, they need to get a life.”
The House is back in session, but it might be a short one.
Speaker Mike Johnson is looking to tick off the lone essential item on the chamber’s to-do list in lawmakers’ first days back: a Senate-passed, shutdown-averting spending bill.
A handful of other priorities are caught up in partisan battles and Senate limbo. Rebel factions in a thin House GOP majority continue to threaten Republicans’ plans of opening the floor for debate. And many Republicans are simply eager to get back home to campaign ahead of the November midterms rather than endure more headaches in Washington.
Together, those dynamics have fueled open speculation among members and aides that House leaders will call it quits until mid-November much sooner than the currently scheduled Oct. 1 exit date.
“So many people are having to run back and forth to campaign,” Rep. Morgan Griffith told reporters Thursday. “I think we can get some other things done [beyond the spending stopgap], but the big bills will probably have to wait until after the election.”
Johnson’s planning to put the spending bill on the floor Tuesday under a fast-track method, since there are reasons to believe it will pass without much drama.
The House agenda for this week also includes a vote from Republicans on a resolution condemning socialism — a political swipe at Democrats. And a potential vote is on tap to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards for alleged inappropriate conduct toward two female staffers following an Ethics Committee recommendation. Edwards attempted to clear his name last week ahead of the expected vote.
Other House priorities are stuck in the Senate or at a stalemate:
Key House Democrats believe the Senate-passed Russia sanctions bill gives too much authority to President Donald Trump, making it unclear it can pass.
Adoption of a budget blueprint for a fresh GOP party-line spending package is stuck amid competing demands from defense hawks, fiscal conservatives and some GOP senators who still aren’t convinced the bill is needed. Senate Republicans don’t expect the budget measure to be brought to the floor before the election, according to five people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions.
The Senate is expected to focus in September on confirming Trump nominees and holding a vote on cryptocurrency legislation, as well as trying to advance a bill to overhaul college athletics and the Senate version of the farm bill.
With those items deep in negotiations, there’s little incentive for House members to hang around to see if the Senate will play ball once it returns Sept. 14 for a brief three-week session.
Both chambers are already scheduled for recess next week following the Labor Day holiday, and many Republicans are expected to travel to Dallas then for the GOP’s midterm convention.
What else we’re watching:
— LAWMAKERS JOCKEY FOR E&C SPOTS: Lawmakers are already lobbying leadership to secure at least eight empty slots opening up on the powerful Energy and Commerce panel next year. Democrats Reps. Melanie Stansbury, Maxine Dexter, Jill Tokuda, Eric Sorensen and Luz Rivas have thrown their hats in the ring so far. Meanwhile, Republican Reps. Bob Onder and Brad Knott are working to convince leadership to put them on the panel.
— MILITARY WIDOWS STUCK IN BILL BRAWL: Military widows are caught in the middle of a bigger battle over how veterans should get compensated for their service. That House brawl over veteran benefits could ruin the last, best chance for widows to fix a decades-old law that strips away support benefits if they remarry. House lawmakers are eyeing mid-September for another vote on the legislation after a July vote was derailed amid opposition. If that’s successful, Senate Republican leaders have promised to fast-track the bill in an effort to send it to the president’s desk by the end of the year. If House lawmakers can’t, the measure will likely be shelved until at least the next Congress.
Mia McCarthy, Jordain Carney, Kelsey Brugger and Leo Shane III contributed to this report.
The House is back in session Monday for the first time in five weeks. It’s not clear how long members will stick around.
Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to tick the lone essential item off the chamber’s to-do list in lawmakers’ first days back: sending a shutdown-averting spending bill to President Donald Trump’s desk. Otherwise, the Capitol Hill agenda is devoid of must-pass legislation until later in the year.
Meanwhile, the thin GOP majority has had trouble opening the House floor for debate on any number of legislative priorities, and many Republicans lawmakers are simply eager to get back home ahead of the November midterms rather than endure more headaches in Washington.
Together that has fueled open speculation among members and aides that House leaders will call it quits until mid-November much sooner than the currently scheduled Oct. 1 exit date.
“So many people are having to run back and forth to campaign,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) told reporters Thursday. “I think we can get some other things done [beyond the spending stopgap], but the big bills will probably have to wait until after the election.”
Another House Republican, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, was more blunt: “I think we have very little to do.” A third member, running for reelection in a competitive district, said in a text message, “I’d be happy to be sent home early!”
The agitation for an early exit is likely to grow louder if Johnson can win approval as planned this week for the Senate-passed government funding bill, which would postpone a possible shutdown from midnight Sept. 30 to Dec. 11. The funding patch also would extend the deadline to reauthorize lapsing surface transportation authorities.
GOP leaders plan to put the bill on the floor Tuesday under a fast-track method requiring a two-thirds majority vote, and there are reasons to believe it will pass without much drama. Trump and key congressional Democrats have endorsed the 10-week punt.
That bipartisan support is expected to overcome Republicans concerns over a Senate-inserted provision backed by the White House to delay the start of an intoxicating hemp product ban, as well as a provision favored by Democrats to temporarily hold up a Trump administration proposal to put political appointees in charge of federal grant approvals.
“I would say that we’re going to avoid any kind of shutdown, and we’ll be in good shape going into the elections,” Rep. Riley Moore of West Virginia, a GOP appropriator, told reporters earlier this month.
Lawmakers have already punted other major deadlines, leaving members eyeing the post-election “lame duck” session for substantive legislating. But there are also lingering questions about whether House Republican leaders can move forward with a partisan agenda in any case.
Rebel factions upset over matters ranging from ethanol fuel regulations to immigration policy votes have frustrated Johnson’s attempts all summer to pass procedural measures necessary to bring GOP bills to the floor. Many Republicans believe those dynamics will continue into September, leaving the fast-tracked bills passed under “suspension of the rules” as leaders’ only legislative option.
“I don’t think many things are going to pass except for suspension bills,” said another House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly about the GOP’s expectations for the pre-election session.
While leaders and their top aides acknowledge no current plans to send members home early, a frozen floor could quickly lead them to determine otherwise. At the same time, some Republicans are wary of beating an early retreat after many of them hammered the Senate for leaving town earlier this month without taking up key House-passed bills.
“We need to campaign, but it’s not a great look for us to not come into town and work,” a fifth House Republican granted anonymity said. The member, representing a safe red district, acknowledged that others in more competitive districts likely feel differently.
“People already think we are on vacation when we’re home,” the lawmaker added. “What kind of damage does it do if we leave D.C. again?”
Both chambers will be out of session next week following the Labor Day holiday, and many Republican lawmakers are expected to travel to Dallas at the end of that week for the GOP’s midterm convention. Republicans are looking to amp up one of their top campaign messages beforehand — that Democrats are left-wing extremists — by forcing a vote this week on a resolution condemning socialism “in all its forms.”
The House could also vote this week to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) for inappropriate conduct toward two female staffers following an Ethics Committee recommendation. Edwards, who dropped his bid for reelection two days after the panel issued a lengthy report, attempted to clear his name to his colleagues last week ahead of the expected vote.
House GOP leaders could also put a Senate-passed Russian sanctions bill on the floor before the end of the month, though it is unclear whether it can pass. Many House Democrats — including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the party’s leader on the Foreign Affairs Committee — believe the bill would give too much authority to Trump.
But with many other House priorities currently in Senate limbo, there could be little incentive for members to hang around to wait to see if the Senate will act once it returns Sept. 14 for a brief three-week session.
House Republicans rushed before their summer recess to adopt a budget blueprint for a fresh party-line spending package, but it’s currently stuck across the Capitol amid competing demands from defense hawks, fiscal conservatives and some GOP senators who aren’t convinced another such bill is needed at all.
Senate Republicans don’t expect the budget measure to be brought to the floor before the election, according to five people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions.
House Republicans appear to be acknowledging that reality. When asked if he was confident the Senate would take up a third reconciliation bill, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) told reporters this month that “‘confident’ is probably the wrong word.”
Instead, the Senate is expected to focus in September on confirming Trump’s nominees and holding a vote on cryptocurrency legislation, as well as trying to advance a bill to overhaul college athletics and the Senate version of the farm bill.
Some House Republicans, including Majority Whip Tom Emmer, have been trying to build public pressure on the Senate to pass the crypto bill known as the Clarity Act for months. But a mid-September vote on that measure is likely to fail. And while negotiations continue over the Senate’s college sports bill, a bill on the same topic in the House has stalled out, giving lawmakers little reason to stay to see if a Senate deal comes together.
As for the farm bill, the House passed its version earlier this year largely along party lines, while the Senate version failed to advance in committee earlier this month due to GOP absences and Democratic opposition. Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.)said he plans to try again in September.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is eager to advance the farm bill before the election, but doing so will require Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to return from a monthslong absence — or Democrats to agree to a deal.
While Republicans are hopeful that McConnell could come back in September, any final agreement on the major agriculture package is expected to wait until after Election Day.
“I think our Democrat colleagues are probably saying we want to wait until after the election to find out what the House of Representatives is going to look like, the Senate is going to look like,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said at an agricultural conference in South Dakota earlier this month.
Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
Congress
The midterms are months away. Members are already jockeying for seats on this powerful panel.
Lawmakers can spend years trying to land seats on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Several could finally get their chance in the next Congress.
The panel with vast jurisdiction over health care, artificial intelligence, energy and telecommunications will have at least eight empty slots in the next Congress — four on each side of the aisle — thanks to a combination of planned retirements, attempts to climb to higher office and primary election defeats.
Democrats are losing Reps. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Marc Veasey of Texas, Robin Kelly of Illinois and Diana DeGette of Colorado. Republican departures include Reps. Buddy Carter of Georgia, Neal Dunn of Florida, Dan Crenshaw of Texas and John James of Michigan. Some of these members also lead influential subcommittees, opening coveted spots that will need to be filled next year.
The intense interest in Energy and Commerce is leading to a high level of public campaigning, particularly among Democrats who believe they stand a chance of winning the majority in the midterms and are eager to influence major policy debates.
“Since I first arrived at Congress in 2021, Energy and Commerce has always been my number one committee that I’ve sought to serve on,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, a progressive Democrat who is making a particularly concerted push, said in an interview.
The Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, made up of leadership and lawmakers from regions across the country, will make selections based on a variety of factors including years of tenure and geographical representation. But the current intraparty jockeying could also set the stage for a proxy battle pitting progressives against moderates, mirroring the ideological clash Democrats are watching play out on the campaign trail.
Democrats famously tied themselves in knots over this dynamic in 2020, when members of the Steering and Policy Committee were torn between progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and then-Rep. Kathleen Rice, a fellow New York Democrat and a centrist.
The panel ultimately gave the open seat to Rice, who in the closed-door meeting was perceived as likely to be more cooperative in advancing the party’s key legislative priorities. She ended up being among a trio of moderates who thwarted then-Chair Frank Pallone’s health care agenda by opposing a drug pricing provision, punting the issue to another committee of jurisdiction.
Four years later, Ocasio-Cortez finally made it onto the committee.
“The argument that some individuals in the caucus had made against my appointment in a previous term was this idea about being a team player,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent interview. “But ironically … not only did they deny me the seat on those grounds, but they appointed someone who actually voted with Republicans.”
“So when we talk about who’s going to be a team player,” she continued, “I think that especially if we are working with thin margins, it’s very important that on an issue as important as health care, energy, et cetera, and confronting a Trump White House … we need to have very strong Democrats on the committee that are going to fight forcefully for the caucus’s priorities.”
Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who is in line to continue leading Energy and Commerce Democrats, has hinted he plans to pursue progressive policies — such as a crackdown on data centers that could involve a nationwide moratorium — should his party prevail in November. He’ll need buy-in on such plans from the left wing of his caucus, but he was not eager in July to discuss the committee assignment process.
“Let’s get elected in the majority first,” Pallone said in an interview. “I’m not going to deal with that until later.”
For now, Democrats now vying to be on Energy and Commerce are leaning less into their ideological leanings and more the policy expertise they would bring to the table — and the value their appointments would bring to constituents.
Stansbury, for example, called the committee a critical platform for tackling climate and energy policy, adding it was “very important to my district to address the rural health care crisis and the behavioral health crisis.”
Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), a first-term lawmaker, is also making her case to get onto the committee, pointing to her experience as a critical care physician and pulmonologist.
“I’ve seen firsthand the enormous burdens patients, families, and healthcare providers face every day,” she said in a statement. “It’s part of the reason I ran for office — because so many of the problems I encountered couldn’t be solved in the exam room.”
Historically, members interested in joining Energy and Commerce tend to bide their time on the House Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over public lands, energy development, fisheries and Native American issues. Ocasio-Cortez made the leap, and Stansbury and Dexter are hoping to follow.
Rep. Jill Tokuda of Hawaii, who serves on the Agriculture and Armed Services committees, is also looking to be seated on Energy and Commerce. An aide said in a statement that she would be “first congressional delegation member from Hawaiʻi to join the committee” as well as only the second Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander.
An aide for Rep. Eric Sorensen of Illinois, who currently sits with Tokuda on Agriculture and Armed Services, said he is interested in joining Energy and Commerce next year, too. So is Rep. Luz Rivas of California, an engineer who appeared at the committee’s “Member Day” forum to speak about her STEM background and interest working on AI issues.
Republicans looking to get on the panel will be picked after the elections by the GOP Steering Committee, and Rep. Bob Onder of Missouri is making an especially forceful push. He said in an interview last week his more than 30 years as a physician would be an asset for the committee, which has traditionally had a handful of lawmakers with medical backgrounds and is set to lose two: Carter, a pharmacist, and Dunn, a urologist.
He also said he has made his interest known to Guthrie and that Reps. Greg Murphy of North Carolina and John Joyce of Pennsylvania — co-chairs of the GOP Doctor’s Caucus — wrote a letter last week to Speaker Mike Johnson on his behalf, saying that Onder’s “clinical experience, policy engagement, and demonstrated leadership make him exceptionally well qualified.”
Rep. Brad Knott (R-N.C.) is also making his interest known, saying he has “talked to a lot of folks” and is pursuing a “kind of whole committee wide approach” to convincing Steering members to put him on Energy and Commerce.
“North Carolina is one of the fastest-growing states,” Knott said in an interview. “Energy demand will at least double in the next 10 years. Got to get that policy right.”
Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said in an interview in July “there’s a couple buzzing around” who want to join the panel but declined to elaborate.
“We have a lot of talented members, but I’ll let them say what they are interested in,” he said.
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