WASHINGTON — Republican colleagues, party insiders, reporters, congressional staffers, political fundraisers and Democratic rivals have a burning question: Where is Tom Kean Jr.?
Hardly anyone knows.
At the Capitol, Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th) last week said he has not heard from Kean in weeks, despite repeated entreaties.
“No, and I call,” Smith said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News.
Scant firm information has trickled out since Kean, 57, last voted at the Capitol on March 5.s Kean (pronounced “cane”) has missed 88 roll-call votes on the House floor and others during meetings of the Energy and Commerce and Foreign Affairs committees. During absences, members’ offices still run — their staff field calls, help the public on case work and signs on to letters and bills. But staff cannot vote for their boss.
Kean’s absence comes as Republicans are writing legislation they can pass into law on party-line votes to fund, with about $70 billion in new money, the Trump administration’s hardline immigration crackdown and mass deportation tactics.
The House is expected to take up and vote on portions of that bill this week, according to a schedule set by Republicans.
Mystery deepened late last week when Kean’s chief of staff, Dan Scharfenberger, gave an interview to The New York Times that provided no new information. “There’s no cameras where Tom is,” Scharfenberger told the newspaper.
Kean’s father, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean Sr., then provided little clarity to CNN in an interview.
“He’s hopefully coming back soon and he’s under the care of a doctor,” Kean Sr. told CNN by phone, adding he had been seen by several doctors. “They all agree he’s going to be fine.”
“It took a real illness to knock him out,” Kean Sr. said. “This won’t linger. It’s not some kind of disease that’s going to incapacitate him in the future. The consensus is that he will be 100% OK.”
Unopposed in June
For months, Kean’s staff have repeatedly told reporters that the congressman is recovering from an undisclosed health concern, without providing a timetable on his return to full work.
While concerned for Kean’s health, Republican leaders in his 7th Congressional District are not worried about his run for re-election. Democrats are aggressively targeting the race in midterm elections. Political experts view it as the most vulnerable Republican seat in New Jersey.
“My expectation is that he will be back and all will be fine,” said Bill Palatucci, a Republican national committeeman from New Jersey who serves as the lawyer for the Kean campaign.
For the midterms, Kean’s absence has no impact on the June 2 primary because he is unopposed. Palatucci said he doesn’t expect it will hurt Kean in the general election, either.
“Every family has experienced an unexpected medical episode of some severity,” Palatucci said, “so I think people really can identify with that and sympathize with that. It is still the spring. I think once he gets back and gets on the campaign trail, this issue will be forgotten.”
The four Democrats vying in the primary to take on Kean in the fall were critical of his absence during a debate Tuesday night. All wished him a full recovery, though some criticized the way his office has handled this matter.
“If you were missing work, you would tell your boss — and Tom Kean Jr.’s boss is the people,” Michael Roth, one of the Democratic candidates, said during the debate. “He did not tell us. And in the time that he did not show up for work, he has raised more than $600,000 just from corporate PACs alone. That tells you who his boss is.”
‘Cute spin’
Other Democrats equated the absence with his general style of governing and campaigning, including not holding in-person town hall meetings.
“What we are being assured is that his team is carrying the torch, but we elected Tom Kean Jr., not his team,” said Dr. Tina Shah, MD, another Democratic contender. “We want to see a representative who is able to communicate to us, even though he’s human and he is allowed to deal with his own personal medical issues. … We are watching someone who has a history of just avoiding reaching out to his constituents and being available to his constituents.”
Mary Melfi, the county clerk in Hunterdon, fully within the 7th District, called such comments “ugly.” Rep. Donald Payne, a Democrat, missed about two weeks of votes in 2024 after a heart attack that ultimately led to his death, she noted.
“Where were the Democrats when Mikie Sherrill was running for office for a year?” Melfi asked. Sherrill sought and won re-election to her 11th District House seat in 2024, and then less than two weeks after Election Day formally launched her campaign for governor – which she won last year.
“That’s cute spin in the primary,” Palatucci said, “but I think people in real life understand family emergencies and so they’ll be willing to put it behind them. And if they try that in the fall, it will backfire.”
An NJ Spotlight News analysis of Federal Election Commission campaign data found that between March 5, the first day Kean missed a voting session, and March 31, the last day for which the campaign had to report, Kean took in $1.14 million in contributions. The campaign has sent fundraising emails over the last two months, including one on May 14: “Don’t let this seat flip. Rush your most generous contribution to Tom Kean today.”
His campaign raised close to $4.4 million through March and has almost $3.4 million in the bank, federal data show. A Kean-aligned political action committee, The Kean Victory Fund, raised $79,550 in March.
Kean is not the only House member who has missed weeks of votes. Florida Democrat Frederica Wilson, 83, recently had eye surgery, her staff said.
“She’s recovering from a procedure, and I expect that she’ll be back shortly,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Thursday.
Agenda blockers
Under House rules, the Speaker can order the sergeant-at-arms, the top law-enforcement official who safeguards the House, to find members and bring them to the chamber floor.
In such a case, the sergeant-at-arms likely would send officers to locate missing members, then ‘‘shall secure and retain their attendance,” under House rules.
In closely divided Congresses of the late 1800s, lawmakers at times denied quorums — half the chamber plus one member — to halt it from conducting any business. They simply would not vote or show up, thus blocking the majority from its agenda.
“When a quorum arrives, we will move to dispense with further proceedings under this motion, and at that point additional business may be considered. That is all that can be done under the present circumstances. Members will stand by and enjoy one another’s conviviality.”
More recently, on Nov. 2, 1987, there was no quorum in the House when scads of members failed to show up. Two motions to direct the sergeant-at-arms to locate the hundreds of missing were voted down.
When those failed, there wasn’t a lot to do, as the presiding officer said.
“When a quorum arrives, we will move to dispense with further proceedings under this motion, and at that point additional business may be considered. That is all that can be done under the present circumstances. Members will stand by and enjoy one another’s conviviality,” the speaker said.
Representatives for Mike Johnson, the current speaker, did not respond to questions from NJ Spotlight News about any efforts to locate Kean.
Perhaps the most famous quorum-busting maneuver in congressional history came in February 1988, when Democratic Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia ordered the Senate sergeant-at-arms to locate and haul to the floor Bob Packwood, a Republican from Oregon who had been hiding in his office.
Packwood, like other Republicans in the chamber, had been absent to deny Democrats quorum as they moved campaign finance legislation on the floor one late night.
Flanked by six Capitol police officers, the sergeant-at-arms found Packwood after a search of Senate offices. At 1:17 a.m., according to the Senate Historical Office, the police carried Packwood, feet first, into the chamber.
“I did not come fully voluntarily,” said Packwood, once upon his feet.
Colleen O’Dea contributed reporting.
