When Rep. Tom Kean Jr. revealed Tuesday his extended absence from the House was due to inpatient treatment for depression, he ended months of speculation but also fueled a delicate conversation: Just how much privacy are elected officials entitled to?
The New Jersey Republican offered only scant details about his condition during the four months he went missing. And while colleagues of both parties expressed sympathy for his mental health challenges and gratitude that he has now returned, many hedged their comments by saying Kean could and perhaps should have said something earlier.
“Certainly everyone has a right to privacy and to health care and to the mental health care that they need,” said Rep. Maxine Dexter, an Oregon Democrat and physician, while adding that members are obligated to be “transparent and forthcoming.”
“You give up the right to privacy in a certain respect when you run for office and represent that many people,” she said. “And so I do challenge our colleagues to be more transparent when these things happen.”
Even Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Kean should have said more sooner at a news conference Tuesday: “If it were me, I would have been more specific about that, and I encouraged him to be.”
Kean appeared to anticipate that he might be criticized for saying so little as he missed more than 100 votes — no matter how sensitive his diagnosis might be. In the floor speech he gave upon returning Tuesday, he described himself as a “private person by nature” and said he “was still trying to understand what was happening” when his office first attributed his absence to a “medical issue.”
“When I said I hoped to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it,” Kean said. “Those were the best estimates the doctors could provide.”
Other parts of his approach, however, raised eyebrows. His social media accounts continued as if he was still at the Capitol, fueling more questions about his malady. Reports of an empty house back in New Jersey and an aide’s offhand comment that there were “no cameras” where Kean was only added to the speculation.
Many fellow House members spoke carefully Tuesday about Kean’s condition while also making clear that it should not excuse him from accountability for how his absence was handled.
“I think many of us have a tremendous degree of empathy and understanding for a mental health diagnosis,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in an interview. “There’s a valid discussion here about when it comes to the volume of an absence, what is our responsibility to our constituents in communicating around that?”
Attitudes and practices surrounding mental health care in big-time politics have been transformed since 1972, when Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri lost his No. 2 spot on the Democratic presidential ticket after his bouts with depression were publicized.
While the subject remains taboo among some, more lawmakers have talked openly about their mental health struggles as the disease has grown in prevalence among the general public.
When Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was hospitalized for clinical depression three years ago, he almost immediately explained his health issues and offered routine public updates.
Fetterman’s transparency was met with plaudits and empathy from his congressional colleagues at the time, but he later said in an interview that he had regrets about opening up.
He blamed “people in the media” for having “weaponized” his illness, he told the New York Times a year ago: “It shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I got help.”
Others have been similarly candid. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) opened up in 2023 about overcoming a debilitating mix of anxiety, depression and the side effects of drugs used to treat them. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Becca Balint (D-Vt.) have spoken about their struggles, too.
Torres quickly responded to Kean’s announcement in a social media post, noting that while he sympathized, those in elected positions also have “a duty of transparency.”
Balint in an interview questioned whether staying silent on the issue for months served to “perpetuate the stigma” around mental health challenges.
“I’m glad that he is being open in public about it,” she said, while adding, “I wish that he had done that months ago, to even just make just a general statement.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, who had questioned Kean’s whereabouts before his announcement, was among the small number of members who were not so understanding and called his long absence “ridiculous.”
“I think there’s this dose of depression that comes with every congressional pin that’s issued,” the Colorado Republican said. “Life is depressing. Life is hard. Get to work.”
While few Americans can afford to miss months of work for mental health treatment like Kean, depression-related work absences have become a major issue as the prevalence of the disease in the U.S. has only grown. Depressed workers are many times more likely to miss work because of the condition but are also less likely to self-disclose depression issues.
Several Democrats and Republicans were supportive of Kean immediately after his announcement and applauded him for coming forward with the diagnosis.
“It’s helpful to the American people and to others with depression to be able to acknowledge that this is what’s happening and it’s not a sin, he’s not a bad person, he’s not a weak person,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a co-chair of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus, said in an interview. “It’s a brain disease, and I want him to be well.”
Beyer also said he was “disappointed” that Kean “felt he couldn’t disclose it,” though said he does not know the fellow congressman well and did not wish to criticize him.
Beyer, who has been open about his son’s schizophrenia diagnosis, said mental health issues should not be a “secret thing tucked away in the closet.”
Kean, for his part, let very few fellow politicians into his confidence. The two other Republicans in the New Jersey delegation, Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, said they had not heard from Kean in months despite calling and texting him out of concern.
Despite what Van Drew described as “radio silence,” the two other New Jersey Republicans defended Kean’s decision to not reveal his diagnosis.
“I was just concerned for him,” Van Drew said. “When you go through something like that, you … choose how you’re going to reveal it. So he decided to do it this way, and that’s fine. It’s his decision.”
Smith said he was optimistic Kean’s public disclosure even now could help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues. Asked about how much privacy members of Congress are entitled to on personal matters, he said, “There’s a balance.”
“He thought this is probably the best way to do it, and so I respected it,” Smith said.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), a Navy veteran who has been open about having post-traumatic stress disorder, said in an interview he was among a select few who knew months in advance about Kean’s diagnosis. He defended Kean’s decision to keep mum.
“If you’ve got a medical condition, that’s up to you to disclose,” he said. “Anybody that’s saying they should have done this or that — really, they need to get a life.”
