Where the Hell Is This Missing Republican Representative?
No one seems to know where Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is.
The New Jersey Republican has been missing since March 5, has so far missed 88 votes in the House and has not been seen in Washington for more than 75 days. But residents of Westfield, an affluent suburb of Kean, say the lawmaker isn’t home either.
Three neighbors who spoke NOTUSJosé Pagliery of , said the lawmaker’s two-story Tudor-style home had been dark for weeks. Additionally, Kean’s wife is nowhere to be found: local residents said they could not remember the last time they saw Ms. Kean walking the family dog, nor the last time her car was parked in the driveway.
Pagliery reported that a single black Ford F-150 was outside Kean’s home, covered in yellow pollen. No one answered the two Reolink digital doorbells when Pagliery rang.
The silence in Kean’s house was only accentuated compared to the rest of the bustling neighborhood, where people walked their children to school, rabbits and squirrels crossed the road, and landscapers worked on maintaining individual properties.
But Kean didn’t give up the property. The couple actually paid their sewer bill in advance on March 31 and paid their property tax bill five days late on May 6, according to city records obtained by NOTUS.
Kean offered a meager explanation late last month for his sudden disappearance, admitting to House Speaker Mike Johnson (after a small pressure campaign by journalists and tri-state lawmakers effectively forced him to speak) that he had been dealing with an unspecified “personal health issue.”
At the time, Kean promised he would return to work shortly. It’s been almost four weeks since then.
On Wednesday, Johnson noted to reporters that he had spoken to Kean “a few weeks ago now” and reiterated that Kean had assured him he would return to the lower house “soon”.
But time is running out: Johnson is promoting partisan budget reconciliation that faces total opposition from the Democratic Party. The speaker can only spare two Republican votes on the measure, if all Democrats are present and oppose it.
Kean was elected to represent New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District in 2022, and he is months away from being plunged into a contentious midterm re-election cycle. He is currently uncontested in the Garden State’s Republican primary, scheduled for June 2, but he is expected to face enormous opposition from Democrats next November. In recent months, his district has gone from a “lean Republican” advantage to complete upheaval, according to an analysis by Cook Political Report.
Kean’s absence from the race apparently inspired his competition: the topic all but consumed his potential competition during a Democratic debate on May 12, according to the Bergen record.
