Rep. Tom Kean Jr. returned to the House floor Tuesday, ending a nearly four-month disappearance and offering a terse explanation for his absence: a diagnosis and treatment for depression.
He last cast a vote on March 5, missing more than 140 roll calls while his constituents, and his party, twisted in the wind.
The apology was delivered. The excuses were made. And now, the American public is left to decide if this is a story of personal struggle, or a farce of profound contempt for the very people he was elected to serve.
After four months away from his taxpayer-funded job in Congress, Kean said he was diagnosed with depression and hospitalized for several months, explaining the reason behind his absence.
Kean didn’t share further details about his hospitalization, but he pointed out that many people underestimate the seriousness of depression, the most common mental health disorder impacting millions of Americans.
“If it were me, I would have been more specific about that. … It’s not an uncommon kind of condition and ailment that he’s been fighting, and I think people resonate with that. I think he’ll get a lot of empathy, because it’s something that’s very, very common,” said GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, who claimed that he encouraged Kean to be transparent.
Because while Kean was not working, he was not, it turns out, entirely idle. A review of financial disclosures reveals the congressman was actively trading stocks.
His long absence sparked rumors about his health and when he might come back. When asked about it, his chief of staff told The New York Times, “There are no cameras where Tom is.”
During the time he was absent, he bought and sold shares of various companies, signing off on transactions even as he was unable to cast a vote on a $70 billion deportation package or a labor-rights measure that every other New Jersey representative supported.
The DCCC has started an ad campaign highlighting his financial activity, stating simply: “Won’t show up to work, but will trade stocks”.
His travel receipts tell another curious tale.
While claiming he was too ill to appear in Washington, Kean took Amtrak and used rideshares around San Francisco.
Meanwhile, his chief of staff traveled to Las Vegas and Virginia, funded by special interest groups, all with the congressman’s signature. The only thing more pathetic than his absence is the appearance of a man who has time to manage his portfolio and sign off on staff junkets but cannot find the time to represent his district.
His Republican colleagues, without the veil of decency, are starting to panic.
The absence has severely hamstrung Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor-thin majority.
Colorado’s Lauren Boebert —a gun-toting lunatic— described Kean’s unexplained absence as “embarrassing” during an interview with TMZ.
Boebert, who was ejected from a Denver theater for groping and vaping during a public sexual display that interrupted a live performance of Beetlejuice, had the temerity to call Kean’s unexplained absence “embarrassing.”
“We’re supposed to be the party that is against campaigning from the basement,” Boebert said, speaking of the absence with a lack of self-awareness that is staggering in its audacity.
The Republican lawmaker is considered the nation’s most vulnerable GOP incumbent in the general election in November.
Then, there is the contrast.
Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman suffered a stroke during a brutal campaign, battled clinical depression, and voluntarily checked himself into Walter Reed.
The Democrat went public. He told the truth. He turned his suffering into a bridge. Kean, by contrast, hid. He issued vague statements and watched his party struggle.
Kean was never going to win a Profile in Courage award, but now, he has put his participation trophy in jeopardy.
His district, rated a toss-up by the Cook Political Report, now faces a November election against Rebecca Bennett, a former military helicopter pilot, who has offered him a quiet hope for recovery.
The voters of New Jersey’s 7th District will have the final say on whether this display of absence and entitlement was an illness—or arrogance.
The moniker “Crazy Tom Kean” —which stems from the firestorm surrounding his prolonged, mysterious absence from Congress, where he was out of public view for nearly four months—is not going to be an asset in the campaign, because his behavior has not engendered much sympathy from residents whose lives have been much more difficult than that of the trust fund baby who had the luxury to disappear for months.
A Central New Jersey mother suffering from depression said she wished she had the option to disappear while experiencing depression.
Pre- and postpartum depression is a common condition that affects an estimated 10 to 20 percent of new mothers, according to Katy Backes Kozhimannil, an assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis.
Kozhimannil co-authored a study with Alyce S. Adams, a research scientist in the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente, in Oakland, California; and three Harvard Medical School professors, Stephen B. Soumerai, Alisa B. Busch, and Haiden A. Huskamp, that found New Jersey’s efforts to improve postpartum depression care did not change treatment patterns for women on Medicaid.
Kean was a member of the New Jersey Legislature for 20 years before he was elected to Congress.
“We examined the impact of these policies on a particularly vulnerable population, Medicaid recipients, and found that neither the required screening nor the educational campaign that preceded it was associated with improved treatment initiation, follow-up, or continued care,” said the study. “We argue that New Jersey’s policies, although well-intentioned, were predicated on an inadequate base of evidence and that efforts should now be undertaken to build that base.”
In May 2025, Kean voted in the House Energy and Commerce Committee for a measure cutting billions in federal Medicaid funding. Without speaking, Kean walked past dozens of people in wheelchairs, disability advocates protesting the cuts, who lined the halls outside the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing room, before he went inside and supported the draconian Medicaid cuts.
Watching as the hearing took place was 23-year-old Sasha Kirilenko, a student at Raritan Valley Community College from Kean’s congressional district, who was born with cerebral palsy, a condition that affects movement and posture.
Later, Kean voted in favor of sweeping budget reconciliation legislation that reduced federal Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion to offset the same cost of large-scale tax giveaways for corporations and the highest-income earners.
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