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House Republicans face a critical week for must-pass legislation, but one GOP lawmaker who has tallied dozens of missed votes may not be present.
Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., has missed more than a month of votes due to an unspecified health issue. It remains to be seen whether the two-term lawmaker will be absent again this week as the House considers a budget blueprint to fund immigration enforcement and legislation reauthorizing the government’s warrantless surveillance powers.
Kean’s prolonged absence comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., can afford to lose just a handful of votes on party-line legislation given House Republicans’ razor-thin majority.
“He’s expected to be totally fine and back to a full schedule soon,” Harrison Neely, a spokesperson for Kean, told Fox News Digital.
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Neely did not specify when Kean plans to resume work or the nature and extent of his illness.
Kean has missed 50 roll call votes since March 17, amounting to a 100% absence rate, according to GovTrack, a website that monitors congressional absences. He last voted on March 5 — nearly two months ago.
Johnson said Thursday that he spoke to Kean by phone and expects him to make a full recovery.
“He is attending to a personal health matter and expects to be back to 100% very soon,” Johnson said in a statement to Fox News Digital, first obtained by The New York Times. “Tom is one of the most dedicated and hardest-working Members of Congress, and I am grateful for all he does and will continue to do to serve New Jerseyans and our country.”
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The scrutiny over Kean’s extended absences comes as national Democrats are aggressively targeting his swing seat ahead of November’s midterm elections. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Kean’s re-election contest as a “toss-up.”
Kean fended off Democratic candidate Sue Altman by five points in 2024. Four Democratic challengers are vying in a June primary to unseat him.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) sharply criticized Kean for not disclosing his specific health issue to his constituents.
“New Jersey voters deserve to know where Congressman Kean Jr. is and why he continues to play the stock market while in office,” Eli Cousin, a DCCC spokesman, told Fox News Digital.
Cousin alluded to a recent NOTUS report that found Kean has continued to make several personal stock trades during his absence from Washington, D.C.
A Kean spokesperson told The New Jersey Globe last year that the congressman’s investments are handled by financial advisors without his involvement.
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Kean’s office has notably continued to post on social media throughout his extended absence from Washington, D.C.
On Wednesday, Kean’s office highlighted that two bills he introduced earlier in this Congress advanced out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The post did not mention that Kean was not present for the committee markup.
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