As we trudge toward having yet another old man in the White House, the discussion about upper age limits for the people steering our country has flared up once again – and no recent case demonstrates the potential merit of the idea quite like that of Texas Congressional District 12 representative Kay Granger. Congresswoman Granger has been missing from the public eye since July of this year, with her social media accounts being maintained by her team and her office closed and abandoned. When the Dallas Express launched its own investigation, the disturbing truth was finally uncovered: Granger had been secretly living in a memory care facility for months, all without letting her constituents or her colleagues know.
Per the Dallas Express:
The Dallas Express team visited the facility to confirm whether Granger was residing there and to inquire about how she planned to vote on the spending bill. Upon arrival, two employees confirmed that Granger is indeed living at the facility. However, we were not permitted to conduct an interview regarding the current spending debate in the House of Representatives and how or if Ms. Granger planned to vote. Taylor Manziel who is the Assistant Executive Director for the senior living facility acknowledged to The Dallas Express that "This is her home."
Although Granger is slated for retirement at the end of the session regardless, ghosting the American people in the middle of your term sets a disturbing precedent. Personal issues or no, someone around her should have had the wherewithal to push her toward early retirement instead of leaving a seat unfilled at such a critical time or even running her for re-election a couple years ago. It's the same refusal to let go that let Trump stack the Supreme Court after Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death or that compelled Biden to run a doomed re-election campaign.
Today's political generation is also yesterday's political generation, which was the political generation the day before that too. How long before this happens with the President – or, if you believe staffers from the last two administrations, happens with the President again? Looking at the case of Kay Granger, it's hard not to see the merit of getting the Cold War crew out of office and into retirement already.