McConnell's Been MIA for Weeks and Congress Has Zero Power to Do Anything About It

Two Lawmakers Walk Into a Hospital, Nobody Tells Anyone

Let's set the scene. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey was absent from Capitol Hill for months this winter and spring. No statement. No explanation. His office said nothing, his family said nothing, and according to Fox News chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram, who has been covering this story closely, barely a day went by without someone asking what the hell was going on. When Kean finally came back in June, he revealed he'd had a lengthy hospital stay for depression.

Mitch McConnell's situation is somehow murkier. His office announced in June that the 84-year-old Kentucky Republican was hospitalized and receiving 'excellent care.' That's it. That's the whole statement. It took weeks before anyone learned he'd been hospitalized for a fall that led to pneumonia. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, told SiriusXM he had received nothing from McConnell's office. 'Not an email. Not a letter. Not a call.' The governor of the man's own state was getting ghosted.

What the Constitution Actually Says, Which Is Not Much

Here's where it gets constitutionally aggravating. Fox News laid out the relevant text, and the short version is this: the Constitution tells you how old you have to be to serve in Congress, how long you have to have been a citizen, and that you have to live in the state you represent. That's basically the whole checklist.

Article I, Section 5 gives each chamber the power to judge the qualifications of its own members, and with a two-thirds vote, to expel someone. So yes, theoretically, Congress could remove a member. But here's the catch the Founders left in the fine print: the Constitution says nothing about health. Nothing about mental capacity. Nothing about showing up. There is no attendance requirement written into the founding document of the United States government. Dereliction of duty isn't even mentioned.

A governor can declare a seat vacant, but only if the lawmaker actually vacates it. Nobody can force a sitting member of Congress out the door if they refuse to go. The House or Senate can expel someone by a two-thirds supermajority, but in the current political climate, getting two-thirds of Congress to agree on literally anything is a fantasy.

This Is Not Even Close to a New Problem

If you think the McConnell situation is unprecedented, the historical record would like a word. Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, of Glass-Steagall fame, fell ill in 1942. He was absent from the Senate for four years before dying in office. Four years. His colleagues begged him to resign. He said no. End of story.

Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota suffered a stroke in 1969 and literally lost the ability to speak. Senate Republicans demanded he resign. His wife refused on his behalf. Mundt sat in his Senate seat, unable to fulfill his duties, until his term simply expired in 1973. More recently, Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois suffered a stroke in 2012 and missed more than a year before returning. Rep. Lane Evans of Illinois battled Parkinson's Disease for years while serving. Senator John Fetterman took a couple of months off for depression shortly after joining the Senate in 2023, which at least came with a public explanation, as Fox News noted.

The only time either chamber actually took formal action over a member's health was in 1981, when Rep. Gladys Noon Spellman of Maryland suffered a heart attack, was re-elected while unconscious, fell into a coma, and was physically unable to take the oath of office when the new Congress convened. That is apparently the bar. You have to be literally comatose before anyone reaches for the rulebook.

Meanwhile, Voters Are Sitting Here Fuming

Fox News points out something that shouldn't need pointing out but apparently does: the American electorate is furious right now. Prices are up. Trust in institutions is down. People are watching their elected representatives disappear for months at a time with no explanation and discovering that the system designed to hold those representatives accountable has approximately the enforcement power of a strongly worded tweet.

The constituents of both Kean and McConnell had a pretty basic question: is the person we elected actually able to do the job? They didn't get an answer for weeks. In Kean's case, months. And the frustrating reality, as Chad Pergram's reporting makes clear, is that the current constitutional framework offers voters essentially no recourse. You can vote them out next election. You can call your senator. You can write a letter that will also not be returned, apparently. That's about it.