Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, is living in a retirement home, a source told Fox News on Sunday. The source also denied a local news report that said she was in a memory care facility.
Granger, who will retire at the end of this congressional term, has remained largely absent from the Capitol in recent months, having last voted on July 24. This year she was absent for more than 54% of the votes.
The Dallas Express investigated the 81-year-old congresswoman’s absence and released a report Friday that quoted a constituent from her district as saying Granger was living in a memory care facility in Texas. The report was later picked up by other news sources.
Fox News spoke to a source from Granger’s office who denied that Granger was in a memory care unit. The source told Fox News that Granger is staying at a retirement home that provides memory care, but not in the memory care unit itself.
HOUSE PASSES FUNDING BILL WITH ONLY HOURS UNTIL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, leaves the House Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on Wednesday, May 10, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Granger released a statement to Fox News saying she has had to deal with it “health challenges” and is “deeply grateful for the outpouring of care and concern” over the weekend.
“As many of my family, friends and colleagues know, I have faced a number of unforeseen health challenges over the past year,” Granger said in the statement. “Since early September, however, my health issues have increased, making frequent travel to Washington both difficult and unpredictable. During this time, my incredible staff has remained steadfast and continued to provide exceptional service, as they have for the past 27 years.”
Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, speaks during a press conference with other Republican members of the House of Representatives at the Capitol on July 21, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Granger, who did not seek re-election for the next term, has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1997. She previously served as the first female mayor of Fort Worth, Texas.
Although Granger does not appear to have cast a vote since July, she did return to the Capitol in November for the unveiling of her portrait as chair of the Appropriations Committee and a reception that followed. House Speaker Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise both spoke at the event.
A senior Republican source told Fox News that Granger had not resigned sooner because of the razor-thin situation Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
“Honestly, we needed the numbers,” the source told Fox News.
The slim majority poses a challenge to the chairman of the 119th Congress, in which vote turnout could be the difference between success or defeat for Republicans.
Fox News reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.
Granger’s long absence was criticized by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, in a post on X.
“Kay Granger’s long absence reveals the problem with a Congress that rewards seniority and relationships more than merit and ideas,” he wrote. “We have a sclerotic gerontocracy. We need term limits. We need to get a lot of money out of politics so a new generation of Americans can run and serve.”
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Khanna was one of the few lawmakers who had previously criticized what he called “gerontocracy.” In May 2023, he called out Democratic Rep. Dianne Feinstein, who was 89 years old at the time, called to resign because her own health problems kept her away from the Capitol. Feinstein died months later, in September 2023.
