NJ has right to know what ‘serious illness’ has kept congressman 2 months in hiding

Imagine not showing up for work for two months.

No call, no doctor’s note, no nothing. And when your boss finally starts asking questions, your 91-year-old father picks up the phone to say you're sick but you'll be back soon — don't worry about it.

You'd be fired by the end of the week.

But if you're U.S. Rep. Tom Kean Jr., the rules are different.

New Jersey's 7th District congressman has vanished. He's missed nearly 90 votes in Congress, hasn't been spotted in public in over two months, and no reporter or even the leaders of his own party have laid eyes on him.

His father, the former governor of New Jersey, says he had a "serious" illness. House Speaker Mike Johnson says he spoke to Kean — by phone. His office issued a terse statement to the media. 

What illness does he have that would require more than two months of hiding during a campaign season, just after the deadline for Republicans to challenge him in the primary for a swing-district seat, with GOP control of the House hanging in the balance? They won’t say.

If he’s so fine, why not go on Facebook Live or give us a little TikTok dance? His chief of staff says there are "no cameras where Tom is." Well, that rules out Mars!

It’s one of the biggest Jersey mysteries since the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Recently, a reporter went searching for him on Fishers Island, his family’s New York vacation spot. But has anyone tried looking under the Pulaski?

Stop the gaslighting. We deserve to know what is wrong with Tom Kean Jr.

I understand the impulse to keep health problems private. There's still social stigma around certain diagnoses — mental health struggles, addiction, even cancer, which will strike 1 in 3 Americans, as if a diagnosis were a personal failing rather than bad luck. Men especially hate admitting vulnerability, going quiet like a cat or dog retreating in pain to a corner.

But when elected officials ask for people's votes and their trust, they owe them honesty in return.

We didn't get that, for example, when Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver died in office from an undisclosed illness that apparently was "an open secret" among Trenton insiders, but not voters.

Other politicians, however, have understood this. John Fetterman disclosed his stroke during the campaign for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, then his hospitalization for depression after taking office. U.S. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J. 12th District, went on C-SPAN bald, no wig, and mid-chemo. Gov. Jon Corzine, nearly killed in a 90-mph crash, came back on TV to admit he hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.

Here's what we know: A sitting U.S. congressman is drawing his $174,000 salary, skipping nearly 90 votes in a bitterly divided Congress, running for re-election, and telling the people he represents essentially nothing.

Here's what we don't know: Whether Tom Kean Jr. is actually capable of serving the people who elected him.

New Jersey voters don't know whether to feel worried for Kean, angry at him, or both. They don't know whether another Republican should have had the chance to contest this seat. They don't know anything because Kean and his people have decided they don't need to know. And they're attacking reporters for asking questions.

I genuinely wish the congressman a full and speedy recovery. But if Tom Kean Jr. can't show his constituents that he's alive and capable of serving, maybe it's time to ask whether he's in a position to serve at all.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 Managing Editor Sergio Bichao.

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