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{"id":25088,"date":"2026-06-30T15:32:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/kean-returns-to-house-says-depression-diagnosis-led-to-four-month-absence\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:32:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:32:20","slug":"kean-returns-to-house-says-depression-diagnosis-led-to-four-month-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/kean-returns-to-house-says-depression-diagnosis-led-to-four-month-absence\/","title":{"rendered":"Kean returns to House, says depression diagnosis led to four-month absence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/196429\" data-person-id=\"196429\">Tom Kean Jr.<\/a> made his first appearance on the House floor in nearly four months Tuesday and revealed a depression diagnosis led to his extended hospitalization.<\/p>\n<p>The New Jersey Republican\u2019s floor remarks were his first public disclosure about the absence that went publicly unexplained for more than 100 days. His staff blamed a personal medical condition without providing other details, sparking widespread concern and speculation as they assured reporters that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/06\/18\/congress\/tom-kean-return-00967295\" target=\"_blank\">all would be revealed<\/a> when he returned.<\/p>\n<p>Kean explained in the speech that his diagnosis came after medical testing and that he did not know at the outset how long he would be hospitalized.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I said I hoped to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it,\u201d he continued. \u201cThose were the best estimates the doctors could provide, but as the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover, there is no timeline for healing, there is no timeline for recovery \u2014 only the work of getting better one day at a time<\/p>\n<p>Kean, the son of a beloved former governor of the state, is New Jersey\u2019s most vulnerable House Republican. He will face Democrat Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, in the November midterms.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to being absent from Washington, Kean has also been missing from the campaign trail for the last several months, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/05\/22\/tom-kean-jr-s-absence-from-congress-makes-democrats-bullish-they-can-flip-his-seat-00933116\" target=\"_blank\">boosting Democratic hopes<\/a> of flipping his seat. Kean, who won the June 2 primary for his seat unopposed, has insisted he\u2019s fully committed to winning a third term and has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/06\/25\/tom-kean-jr-absent-for-months-will-hold-fundraiser-on-the-day-of-his-return-00976218\" target=\"_blank\">fundraiser scheduled<\/a> for later Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Even Kean\u2019s political allies spent the last several months largely in the dark about his condition. The other two House Republicans from New Jersey, Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, said in April that they had tried <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/04\/22\/congress\/kean-is-mia-00887934\" target=\"_blank\">reaching out to Kean<\/a> out of concern but had not heard back \u2014 Van Drew described it as \u201cradio silence\u201d \u2014 and local party leaders in Kean\u2019s district were similarly left out of the loop.<\/p>\n<p>The mystery of Kean\u2019s absence was only fueled further by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/06\/02\/nyregion\/tom-kean-jr-new-jersey-absence.html\" target=\"_blank\">reports of empty houses<\/a> and ominous statements from his team that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/14\/nyregion\/tom-kean-congress-missing.html\" target=\"_blank\">there were \u201cno cameras\u201d<\/a> where he was.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a private person by nature,\u201d Kean said Tuesday. \u201cTalking about myself has never come naturally, but I believe that I owe an explanation to the people of New Jersey&#8217;s 7th District, to my colleagues in this chamber and to the American people for my absence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaker Mike Johnson said in April that he had spoken with Kean by phone, and later described Kean\u2019s condition as something \u201cvery common\u201d and \u201cnot a scandalous thing at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking shortly before Kean addressed the House Tuesday, Johnson gently chided him for his secrecy: \u201cIf it were me, I would have been more specific about that, and I encouraged him to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kean\u2019s absence has complicated Johnson\u2019s efforts to pass key legislation through a closely divided House where every Republican vote has been precious.<\/p>\n<p>Despite reassurances from Kean\u2019s political team that he was still seeking reelection, his prolonged absence led to speculation in Republican circles that the party would need a late replacement.<\/p>\n<p>Laura Ali, the Republican chair of Morris County, which overlaps with Kean\u2019s district, told Blue Light News earlier this month that Republicans who \u201cwould want to be\u201d considered to replace Kean and \u201chave made their intentions quite clear.\u201d Ali and other local Republicans grew nervous as Kean had effectively ceded the early summer campaign playing field to Bennett.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, I am nervous \u2014 of course I am, because it\u2019s a very unsettling situation,\u201d Ali said at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson predicted Tuesday that Kean \u201cgets elected easily this fall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kean won reelection against Democrat Sue Altman by 5 points in 2024 \u2014 an unusually strong year for Republicans in New Jersey. This year he faces what\u2019s shaping up to be a tougher political environment and an opponent who Republicans, by all appearances, would have preferred to avoid facing.<\/p>\n<p>As Bennett ran a more centrist campaign than her primary rivals, a Republican super PAC posed as a left-leaning group and attacked Bennett as \u201cweak\u201d for not calling to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>Bennett\u2019s biography closely matches Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who last year defied expectations with a landslide victory over Republican Jack Ciattarelli despite eight years of full Democratic control of New Jersey that saw rising energy costs. Sherrill\u2019s statewide victory included a 2-point win in Kean\u2019s 7th District.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Tom Kean Jr. made his first appearance on the House floor in nearly four months Tuesday and revealed a depression diagnosis led to his extended hospitalization. The New Jersey Republican\u2019s floor remarks were his first public disclosure about the absence that went publicly unexplained for more than 100 days. His staff blamed a personal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}