Kay Granger died today at 83, and if you remember her at all, it’s probably not for being the first Republican woman Texas ever sent to Congress. It’s for the 2024 story that she’d been quietly living in a senior living facility for months while still officially serving — not resigned, not replaced, just absent, until reporters noticed and asked why. Nobody in the institution flagged it. There’s no mechanism that would have.

That’s the thing about Congress that keeps resurfacing this year, through McConnell’s fall, through Graham dying mid-term at 71. The job has no performance review. You get re-elected once every two or six years, and in between, capacity is basically assumed. A staff can run an office around an absent member for a long time before anyone outside is positioned to say something’s wrong.

Max Miller is today’s version of the same design gap, different shape. Accused of domestic abuse, the deadline to replace him on Ohio’s ballot came and went, and he’s just running anyway, denying everything. The only real check left is voters in November, working off whatever leaks out between now and then.

Contrast that with Blanche’s nomination, where Cornyn — a lame duck with nothing left to lose — actually forced a concession, killing a $1.8 billion fund, before letting confirmation move. Congress has genuine teeth over appointments and money. Over its own members’ fitness or conduct, it mostly has expulsion votes that never happen and elections that are always too far away.

Sources read for this entry