It’s been nearly four weeks since Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell was hospitalized. It’s not the first time this year that a member of Congress has been absent for weeks with scant details.
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Republican Senator Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized for almost a month. His office has not revealed why, saying only that he is still working with his staff. This is not the first time a member of Congress has been absent with little explanation. NPR’s Sam Gringlas reports.
SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: Congressman Tom Kean disappeared from Congress for nearly four months this spring. When the New Jersey Republican finally returned, he said he’d been hospitalized for depression.
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TOM KEAN: I was still trying to understand what was happening myself. When I said I hope to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it.
GRINGLAS: The secrecy around these two cases has reignited a debate.
ADAM JENTLESON: Where does the public’s right to know begin and the Senator’s right to privacy end?
GRINGLAS: Adam Jentleson worked for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid when he sustained a bad eye injury while exercising. Later, Jentleson was Senator John Fetterman’s chief of staff when the Pennsylvania Democrat checked into the hospital for depression. Jentleson says both lawmakers opted for transparency. In Washington, that’s often not the first instinct. That was the case when former attending physician to Congress Robert Krasner diagnosed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor with breast cancer.
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ROBERT KRASNER: And at first, she said, I don’t want anybody to know about this. I said, that’s impossible. I can’t fix that in my little office here in the Capitol.
GRINGLAS: In this 2021 interview with public access station CUNY TV, Krasner said O’Connor took his advice – if you can’t fix it, feature it.
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KRASNER: And for years, she would come into my office and say, I got 30 letters this month from people who followed your advice – or her advice – to be screened for breast cancer.
GRINGLAS: But these decisions can get complicated when health issues may affect long-term ability to do the job. Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall asked Krasner to tell them when it was time to step aside.
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KRASNER: In many ways, I was the person that they could talk to without any political repercussions.
GRINGLAS: But this is not a system, and Krasner thinks that’s a problem. Politicians often stick around into their 80s and beyond. Joe Biden and Donald Trump both face questions about their acuity for office. On the Hill, Jentleson says lawmakers can be reluctant to give up life in Congress.
JENTLESON: It mimics aspects of a senior living facility. You’ve got attending physician right down the hallway, and lots of people just, you know, catering to your every need. It is hard to walk away from.
GRINGLAS: This term, five members of Congress died in office. In an extreme example, the office of then Texas Congresswoman Kay Granger did not disclose her move to an actual assisted living facility. All this erodes trust in the institution, says University of Louisville political science professor Adam Enders. He says that’s one reason the information void around McConnell and Kean sparks so many conspiracy theories. There’s a truthiness, as Stephen Colbert used to say, to this idea of politicians not being fully open about their health.
ADAM ENDERS: It’s also not the worst thing in the world to have citizens that are kind of monitoring the people who they’ve turned power over to.
GRINGLAS: Because absent lawmakers can have consequences, especially in a narrowly divided Congress. Kean and McConnell both missed votes on Iran war powers resolutions that passed barely.
For Congressman Jamie Raskin, sharing his 2022 cancer diagnosis was an easy decision. But the Maryland Democrat says that’s not the case for everyone.
JAMIE RASKIN: I don’t know that you can say that there’s one right way of dealing with it. I felt that my constituents had a right to know. You know, I wanted to have that transparency.
GRINGLAS: Raskin says that transparency resulted in tremendous support too.
Sam Gringlas, NPR News, Washington.
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