Washington Democrat Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez was watching an Appropriations Committee meeting Tuesday while gazing up at the oil paintings of the influential panel’s former leaders.
She found one in particular to be really disturbing.
In reference to the former Republican congresswoman from Texas who had been dealing with mental decline for years when a conservative news outlet in her state discovered her, at the age of 81, living in an assisted living facility that included a memory care unit while she was still in office, Ms. Perez said, “It’s concerning to sit there under a large portrait of Kay Granger.”
Ms. Perez, a 37-year-old auto shop owner and second-term congresswoman who co-chairs the center-leaning Blue Dog Coalition, found the portrait to be a stark reminder that she has served in Congress with elderly colleagues, some of whom have mental illnesses that prevent them from doing a significant portion of their duties.
Ms. Perez stated that the issue was larger than any one individual, thus she was reluctant to identify any specific coworkers. The 88-year-old nonvoting representative for Washington, D.C., Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, is clinging to her seat despite obvious signs of mental impairment, and she expressed alarm about what she has heard about her. “There are other cases that are too painful to overlook,” she remarked.
Therefore, Ms. Perez proposed an amendment to a congressional spending measure last month with the goal of establishing fundamental rules in Congress to guarantee that members could do their duties without being hindered by severe, permanent cognitive impairment.
Ms. Perez attributed the unanimous rejection of her amendment to the fact that it caused an awkward discussion and that Congress dislikes creating new regulations for itself.
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