For nearly four months, the people of New Jersey's 7th District have had a simple question: where is their congressman?

This week, they got a strange answer. A reporter for the New York Times walked up to Tom Kean Jr.'s home in Westfield on Wednesday night, rang the doorbell, and there he was — standing in a brightly lit front room just before 8:45 p.m., wearing a dark suit and a red tie, his wife smiling behind him.

"It's good to see you," Kean said. "I'll talk to you next week." Then he closed the door.

That was it. The first real sighting of Tom Kean Jr. since he vanished from Capitol Hill in March. No explanation. No apology. Just a man in formalwear at bedtime, telling a reporter to come back later.

More than 100 missed votes

Here is what "I'll talk to you next week" actually costs. Kean was last seen on the House floor on March 5. Since then he has missed more than 100 floor votes. His aides say he is being treated for a health condition and is expected to recover, but for months they refused to say anything more — not what is wrong, not where he was, not when he would come back.

Nobody begrudges a sick person time to heal. But a member of Congress is not just any job. When Kean doesn't vote, his roughly 760,000 constituents have no voice on the House floor at all. Every bill on health care, on grocery prices, on Social Security passed without anyone casting a vote for the 7th District. For months. And his office told them nothing.

His own constituents have been left looking for answers while their representative stayed silent.

Missing for voters — but present for the things that helped him

Here is the part that should make people angry. Kean was too absent to vote. But he was not too absent to keep his career and his money moving.

• He kept trading stocks. While no one knew where he was, Kean disclosed at least 13 stock trades made between March 10 and March 31, buying and selling shares in eight companies worth somewhere between $50,000 and $190,000. He personally certified those disclosures on April 13 — during the same stretch he was too unwell to show up and vote.
• His campaign kept cashing in. With Kean off the grid, his campaign racked up about $167,000 on autopilot. The money never stopped, even when the congressman did.
• He won a primary without showing up. He ran unchallenged, made zero campaign appearances, and won anyway.
• The Congressional Record kept moving. While Kean was nowhere to be seen, the record shows he introduced three bills, co-sponsored others, and submitted five entries — including a birthday tribute. House rules require members to personally sign those submissions. His office never explained how a man too sick to vote managed to sign them.

So he could trade stocks. He could raise money. He could file paperwork. He just couldn't vote for the people who elected him.

A pattern, not an accident

This is not the first time Tom Kean Jr. has told voters one thing and done another. In 2022, he campaigned on banning members of Congress from trading stocks and even attacked his opponent over it. After he got elected, he violated the STOCK Act more than once and never put his assets in the blind trust he promised. The ghost trades during his disappearance are just the newest chapter of the same story.

Kean's office says he will return to Congress on June 30 and finally explain the mystery. New Jersey voters have waited a long time for that. The real test is not whether he gives a speech — it's whether he ever again treats showing up to vote for them as seriously as he treats showing up to trade for himself.

He was lost. Now he's found. He's just still not doing the job.

Source

This post was prompted by Mother Jones, They Found Tom Kean Jr., reporting on the New York Times sighting of the congressman at his home. Photo: Tom Williams/AP via Mother Jones.