Rep. Thomas H. Kean Jr. returned to the Capitol on Tuesday after an almost four-month-long absence, citing treatment for depression as the reason for his disappearance. 

In a brief speech on the House floor, the New Jersey Republican described himself as a private person.

“Talking about myself has never come naturally, but I believe that I owe an explanation,” he said, adding that the experience gave him a “deeper appreciation for the millions of Americans who face these challenges each and every day.”

Since last voting on March 5, Kean has been gone from Washington, pointing to an unspecified health issue. Even as he remained out of public view for months, he introduced multiple pieces of legislation, submitted speeches to the Congressional Record and won a primary election in which he ran unopposed, trying to keep up the appearance of business as usual. 

During his absence, he missed more than 140 roll call votes on the House floor.

“If sharing my story encourages even one person to seek help … then this moment will have been worthwhile,” Kean said in his speech.

As questions about his whereabouts grew louder this spring, Kean’s team had offered just a handful of clues. A spokesperson told the New Jersey Globe in March that the congressman was addressing a “personal health matter” and would be back to a regular schedule “soon,” a promise Kean echoed in an April social media post.

“I understand the need for transparency on this matter and I look forward to sharing my experience with the public,” he added in another statement posted on June 2, the day of New Jersey’s primary.

Kean said Tuesday that he wasn’t trying to move the goalposts but instead discovered that with depression, “there is no timeline for healing.”  

“When I said I hoped to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it — those were the best estimates the doctors could provide,” he said on the floor.

The mystery had become a national news story, as reporters from The New York Times and other outlets knocked on doors of various properties connected to his family, trying to track him down.

The drumbeat of headlines didn’t stop him from earning an endorsement from Donald Trump, who urged primary voters to “GET OUT AND VOTE FOR TOM — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN.”

Kean faces a tough matchup in the fall’s general election, with his 7th District seat a prime target for Democrats. Challenger Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, has had the campaign trail to herself for almost a month and may even be a slight favorite, with Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rating the race Tilt Democratic. 

Limits of privacy

Kean is not the first politician to drop out of sight or evade questions about his health. After then-Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, missed a string of votes in 2024, for example, local reporters discovered she had quietly moved to an assisted living facility while still serving as a sitting member of Congress.

The latest saga created headaches for GOP leaders. “If it were me, I would have been more specific about that, and I encouraged him to be,” Speaker Mike Johnson said of Kean’s reasons at a news conference Tuesday morning. 

But Johnson has largely defended Kean’s reticence, saying in early June that “people are entitled to get sick” and “what he’s dealing with is something very common and not a big thing.”

“He’s asked me not to disclose that, and I’m going to honor that,” Johson said at a June 3 news conference. “There is nothing untoward or scandalous at all in having a health issue, and as soon as he’s ready to talk about that, you’re all going to breathe a sigh of relief and say, ‘That makes sense.’” 

Kean’s return also brings relief for Johnson’s ongoing math problem in the House, giving the tight Republican majority one more vote. 

Absences — whether because of illness, campaigning or otherwise — have plagued the speaker throughout his tenure, as GOP hard-liners have used their leverage to shape their party’s agenda and threaten key procedural votes on the floor. 

And voting remotely is no longer an option. Under a system established by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2020, members could vote by proxy if the pandemic kept them from showing up in person. But Republicans ended the practice when they regained control of the chamber in 2023, complaining it was widely abused.

Kean is the scion of a prominent political family; his father was once New Jersey’s governor, while his grandfather was also a congressman. 

Mental health has long been a taboo subject for elected officials, but attitudes have been changing in recent years. When Sen. John Fetterman was hospitalized for depression in 2023, the Pennsylvania Democrat shared his diagnosis with the public and later spoke about the pressures.

“I assumed that this would be the end of a career, or it was going to turn into an untenable situation,” Fetterman said the next year at the Aspen Ideas: Health conference.

Instead, he said he found an outpouring of support. “I can’t believe that it may have reached that many people, and I just want to be the voice that I would have wanted to have heard during that time,” Fetterman said.