How Should Lawmakers Balance Privacy and Transparency About Their Health?

Senator Mitch McConnell was absent from Capitol Hill for weeks. Rumors and conspiracies swirled until he recently reappeared and said he was in medical care, recovering from a fall.

His Kentucky constituents were frustrated about the lack of updates, and so were members of his own party. What do aging and ailing lawmakers owe to the public, especially if it impairs their ability to serve?

“You don’t owe your constituents any information,” said LRC panelist Sarah Isgur. “However, they don’t owe you their vote. So if you don’t want to tell them about why you’ve been absent … I think that’s just fine. And then they can vote you out of office.”

McConnell’s not the only politician who’s hidden their health from the public eye. Joe Biden, for instance, tried to keep concerns about his health quiet before the 2024 election until it was too hard to ignore.

LRC panelist Liz Bruenig told us there should be some transparency. “I think the public is owed some information on what’s taking place, and it can inform their votes. And it can inform whether or not they trust the respective parties.”

ICE doubled the number of arrests from earlier this year, and has been doing it without the massive protests that rocked the country. It’s part of a new strategy by the Department of Homeland Security, now under Markwayne Mullin, for lower-profile operations.

Sarah said this is the administration following through on its campaign promise to increase deportations, but the White House needs to have some message discipline so that Trump’s backers know it’s happening.

“The problem is when you continued to do the things but didn’t get the headlines,” she said. “I don’t know that most voters knew that that was going on at all.”

But then ICE recently shot two motorists – one in Houston and one in Maine – during traffic stops, putting their tactics back in the headlines.

Liz said these incidents should push Democrats to make ICE enforcement reform a major issue again in Congress.

“It should be a home run for Democrats, right? All they have to do is say, ‘We’re against this, we don’t like it, people keep getting killed, it’s inhumane.’”

This housing bill isn’t a magic bullet, but it does rein in some of the ways housing has become unaffordable in much of the country (your state and local governments have a lot of power, too – sometimes more than the federal government).

It does showcase that there are still some issues where Republicans and Democrats can come together.

How did they get there?

“Neither side is quite sure who their voters are and who their voters will be,” said Sarah. “That provides a lot of rich soil to be able to pass bills for voters that you think you might still have or might have in the future.”

Producer: Leo Duran

Host: Mike Madrid

Guests:

• Liz Bruenig, staff writer at The Atlantic - @EBruenig

• Sarah Isgur, senior editor at The Dispatch - @whignewtons

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