An absent House lawmaker is expected to miss several more weeks of work after vanishing from Capitol Hill and the campaign trail due to an undisclosed illness.<\/p>\n
Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., has not voted in more than two months as House Republicans’ slim majority races to approve must-pass legislation ahead of the midterm elections.<\/p>\n
His father, former Gov. Tom Kean Sr., R-N.J., says his son may not return to Washington until June or later as he recovers from a “serious” illness.<\/p>\n
“You can\u2019t say definitely, but their best guess is now he\u2019ll be out in two or three weeks,” Kean Sr., told NJ.com<\/a> in an interview last week, referring to his son’s doctors. “Any time you\u2019ve been through a serious illness, you can\u2019t be 100% the day you get back. You\u2019re gonna be able to do things, but gradually ramping up.”\u00a0<\/p>\n SPATE OF HEALTH SCARES AND VIOLENT THREATS HIGHLIGHT GROWING VULNERABILITIES FOR LAWMAKERS ON CAPITOL HILL<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n “When he can start to go to Congress again, that\u2019s something the doctor wants to reserve judgment on,” he added.<\/p>\n Kean Jr., 57, last voted on March 5<\/a> and has missed all 88 roll call votes in the lower chamber since then, according to GovTrack, a website that monitors congressional absences.<\/p>\n Representatives for the New Jersey Republican have contended for weeks that he will restart his congressional duties “soon,” but that timeline has remained vague.\u00a0<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Kean Jr. did not immediately respond to a request for comment about when the two-term lawmaker plans to return to Washington.<\/p>\n Kean Sr. did not elaborate about where his son is receiving treatment for the undisclosed diagnosis, but confirmed he is under the care of multiple doctors.<\/p>\n He also declined to disclose the nature of his son\u2019s illness, telling CNN,<\/u><\/a> “That\u2019s up to him.” The former two-term governor added that doctors expect Kean Jr. to make a full recovery.<\/p>\n Since March, Kean Jr.\u2019s office has characterized the congressman\u2019s diagnosis as a “personal health matter” and declined to share specifics.<\/p>\n A top aide for Kean Jr. told The New York Times<\/a> last week, “There\u2019s no cameras where Tom is.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The public last heard from Kean Jr. in late April when he released a public statement, saying, “I will be back to the job I love very soon.”<\/p>\n DEMOCRAT TINA SHAH CALLS TRANSGENDER HEALTHCARE FOR CHILDREN A ‘NO BRAINER’ IN COMPETITIVE NJ HOUSE RACE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Kean Sr. also said that he expects his son to run for re-election despite his disappearance from the campaign trail.<\/p>\n “I think that\u2019s the way he\u2019s going, yeah,” he told the outlet.<\/p>\n Kean Jr.\u2019s ongoing health issues come as national Democrats are aggressively targeting the swing seat Kean Jr. has represented since 2023. Four relatively well-funded challengers, including emergency room physician Tina Shah,<\/a> are vying for the Democratic nomination ahead of a June 2 primary.<\/p>\n Kean Jr. is running unopposed for the GOP nomination.<\/p>\n Republicans in Washington have grown increasingly concerned about Kean Jr.\u2019s prolonged absence, which has an outsize impact on GOP lawmakers\u2019 fragile majority.<\/p>\n The House is expected to vote on legislation this week funding President Donald Trump’s<\/a> immigration enforcement agenda, where House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will likely need near-full attendance from Republicans amid widespread opposition from Democrats.<\/p>\n Johnson told reporters last week that he is praying for Kean Jr’s swift recovery but is in the dark about the nature of the New Jersey Republican’s ailment.<\/p>\n “He said he was out on a medical issue, and he\u2019ll be back as soon as possible,” the speaker said. “That\u2019s the full extent of what I know about it. It\u2019s a personal thing, and obviously I told him that we\u2019re praying for him, and I need him to get back as soon as he can.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An absent House lawmaker is expected to miss several more weeks of work after vanishing from Capitol Hill and the campaign trail due to an undisclosed illness. Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., has not voted in more than two months as House Republicans’ slim majority races to approve must-pass legislation ahead of the midterm elections. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}