WASHINGTON — Tom Kean Jr. has spoken.
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Jewish Federation of West Central New Jersey, which has steadfastly supported Jewish communities in Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren counties for more than six decades,” Kean said Tuesday in the House of Representatives.
Actually, Kean did not do this.
He did not “rise” to address the House.
He did not lift his head, paper in hand, standing in the chamber well, and speak. No words left his mouth.
In fact, he was not even at the Capitol.
Amid his three-month absence from Washington due to undisclosed health reasons, six Kean speeches have been slipped into the Congressional Record, the official historical diary of Congress.
Spokespeople for Kean, a two-term Republican running for reelection, did not respond to questions from NJ Spotlight News about who entered the congressman’s remarks in the record. Kean, 57, running unopposed, won his party’s primary election Tuesday for the 7th Congressional District.
The congressional newspaper Roll Call first reported Kean’s speeches.
Duplicate posts
The submitted speeches fit a wider pattern by Kean’s office during his absence from Capitol Hill through social media and public messaging to generate the image of an active congressman working in his district and Washington.
An Instagram account set up in March started displaying images previously posted from the congressman’s official government account. Kean’s last vote in Congress was March 5.
In April, the account, which has since been deactivated, posted a photo of what appeared to be Kean swearing in local politicians in Bedminster.
The photo and caption below it were identical to a post from the official Kean account in January. It’s unclear who created the account.
Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Wednesday he spoke to Kean a few days ago. “He’s in good spirits,” Johnson said. “It’s not a scandalous thing at all. People deal with health issues.” Kean, he said, is “anxious to come back in person and be here voting every single day.”
First responders
Since Kean stopped voting, his office has directed eight messages to district residents through the House’s taxpayer-funded franking system, a privilege that lets members of Congress send mail and digital information to voters.
Five of those messages, sent on March 26, were to announce federal funding for police departments and first responders that Kean had touted earlier in the year.
“Recently, I visited the Warren Township Police Department to deliver a $900,000 check to local officials and law enforcement officers,” Kean wrote in an emailed message on March 26.
Kean’s office had trumpeted that funding on Feb. 21, more than a month prior.
In another franked email message sent in late March, Kean discussed the $1,932,287 he helped get into law for Readington Police Department headquarters upgrades.
“The funding will exponentially improve communication, data sharing, and emergency response for local first responders,” Kean wrote. This was money that Kean’s office had presented to the Readington police months before.
Other franked messages from Kean’s office include surveys about voter identification, Kean’s job performance and a Republican tax law.
You have to be there
While Kean’s submitted speeches have drawn notice, it is not unusual for members to submit speeches into the Congressional Record, first issued in 1873.
If they miss a vote, members often describe how they would have stood on the measure had they been present.
Though congressional staffers are empowered to sign on to bills and letters for their bosses, they cannot vote in Congress, in committees or on the House or Senate floors. Lawmakers must be physically present in the chamber to vote, by electronic card or paper slip, or occasionally by voice.
Kean’s speeches appeared in the Congressional Record’s Extension of Remarks section, which is reserved for tributes, commemorations and light-hearted fare.
“These statements may be on any subject and typically range from tributes to a local High School sports team to outlining a Members position on an upcoming piece of legislation,” the House Republican Cloakroom says online. “Extensions of remarks are limited to two printed pages of the Congressional record which is roughly equivalent to five single-spaced typed pages.”
The House Democratic Cloakroom has similar rules.
Text submitted for the Congressional Record must “bear the original signature of the submitting” member, according to rules from the House Republican Cloakroom, which runs floor procedure for that party’s lawmakers. “For that reason the Cloakroom cannot accept faxed or electronic copies” of speeches,.
Congressional staffers are allowed to sign on to bills and letters in the name of their boss. Certain activities, though, like annual financial disclosure statements, must be signed by members of Congress by hand with a “wet signature.”
Staffers cannot vote for their bosses. What still happens, though, is the frowned-upon act of “vote pairing” — when two members of different parties reach a deal not to show up, in effect canceling each other’s vote.
Folks in the district
Other Kean written speeches touch on Frank Orrico of South Plainfield, who died in February at 101; the New Jersey Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce; the 100th birthday of Bob Walsh, a Bernardsville resident who was a radio operator in World War II; the 100th anniversary of the Borough of Watchung; and antisemetic violence and religious tolerance.
Political handicappers Cook Political Report and Inside Elections, both nonpartisan analysts, consider the campaign for Kean’s district a toss-up.
Kean will face Democrat Rebecca Bennett. His absence, along with his support for President Trump, will be a central focus in the November race. The next House majority is expected to run through suburban congressional districts like Kean’s.
“Tom Kean Jr., we are coming for you,” Bennett told supporters at her campaign headquarters in Bridgewater on Tuesday.
“Wherever you are, you have failed this district. You were the deciding vote on the ‘one big beautiful bill,’ which is going to take healthcare away from tens of thousands of people in our district,” Bennett said. “You were nowhere to be found when Donald Trump started another forever war in the Middle East. You were nowhere to be found when DHS tried to put an ICE detention facility in Roxbury and you were nowhere to be found when Trump held up the funding for the Gateway Tunnel. Simply put, you are a coward.”
