A shocking story about a Texas congresswoman came out last week. A local reporter got a tip that, after quietly missing months of votes on Capitol Hill, Republican U.S. Rep. Kay Granger had moved into Traditions Senior Living, an assisted-living facility in Dallas.
When the reporter went to the facility to ask how Granger planned to vote on the year-end spending bill in Congress, the receptionist there was clearly confused, responding, “You know you’re in an Alzheimer’s assisted-living facility, right?”
Granger’s son later confirmed to The Dallas Morning News that she had been struggling with “dementia issues.”
The congresswoman, 81, was planning to retire from Congress at the end of this year, but for all intents and purposes, she was already out of office. The problem is that nobody bothered to tell her constituents.
I said the story was shocking, but it’s not really surprising when you look at where she’s been working – on Capitol Hill, the only workplace in America where seniority is rewarded more than showing up and staff are in place to assist, shield and, occasionally, deny the obvious.