Uncomfortable conversation

Case of ‘missing’ congresswoman sparks uncomfortable conversation

Republican Rep. Kay Granger moved to an assisted-living facility months ago and stopped casting votes — a detail that wasn't disclosed to the public.

By Steve Benen

When it comes to understanding the final months of Rep. Kay Granger’s congressional career, a handful of details are unambiguously true. We know, for example, that the Texas Republican — the first Republican woman to lead the House Appropriations Committee — announced in March that she would give up her gavel and forgo re-election, though Granger committed to serving the remainder of her term.

We also know that it was around this time when the congresswoman appeared to struggle with short, prepared remarks on the House floor. Finally, we know that in July, Granger stopped casting votes altogether. The Texan, who turned 81 earlier this year, was still a member of the House in good standing, but she was, for all intents and purposes, missing from Capitol Hill.

As for where Granger has spent her time while her colleagues were working, the answer is just now coming into sharper focus.

There were some reports last week suggesting that Granger has been living in a nursing home for dementia patients over the last several months. While her office quickly pushed back against those claims, aides issued a statement clarifying that the congresswoman moved to a retirement facility that provides memory care.

Her adult son, meanwhile, told The Dallas Morning News that the longtime GOP lawmaker has experienced “some dementia issues.”

As a matter of basic human decency and compassion, people of good will can certainly wish Granger well and hope that she receives quality care at a difficult time. What’s more, it appears the mystery about her whereabouts has effectively been resolved.

But there are a couple of lingering areas of concern.

For one thing, there’s the issue of transparency: A sitting member of Congress, instead of resigning, moved to an assisted-living facility and simply stopped casting votes. As The New York Times report noted, her office chose not to disclose this arrangement to the public.

Relatedly, there’s been some discussion in recent days about the degree to which House Republican leaders might’ve been aware of this and deliberately chose to keep the information under wraps. A Fox News reporter quoted a senior GOP source who said, in reference to the party’s wafer-thin majority in the chamber, “Frankly, we needed the numbers.”

But as a Politico report added, there’s also a broader conversation underway related to the number of septuagenarians and octogenarians in Congress, and the health challenges some of them have faced:

The revelations are sparking a bipartisan backlash and drawing scrutiny to other elderly lawmakers. Some of the toughest comments have emerged from the right, with the Granger news prompting Elon Musk to float cognitive tests for elected officials and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky saying he’s “more concerned about the congressmen who have dementia and are still voting.”

The same report quoted Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California saying, “We need to do some norm changing at a minimum. It should really be unacceptable for members to be completely missing from communications with the public and with their own colleagues for months at a time.”

Huffman went on to say, “Loyalty is a super important part of the work we do, but there is a point at which that becomes detrimental to the institution and to our democracy — and I think we do need to have a conversation about that.”

With the Granger story in mind, it’s a safe bet that conversation is poised to become quite a bit louder.