South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson is the subject of a report in today's Washington Post. While reports are that the Senator is getting therapy and appears to be making progress, the article focuses on questions about what his continued absence means in the Senate and to the state he represents.
The news from the hospital has been good, so far.
"In talking to his physicians, we really feel optimistic and confident that he is going to make a full recovery," says Brendan Johnson, 31, one of the senator's three children and a lawyer in Sioux Falls, S.D. "It is something that takes time. Unfortunately we don't have any type of exact timetable. What we do know from the therapists and physicians working with him at GW is that he is making much faster progress than anyone anticipated."
Johnson speaks only a few words at a time. "He's not conversational, in terms of long conversation," Brendan Johnson says. "He's clearly registering when we discuss topics. I think he loves to hear about how his [three] grandkids are doing. I also keep him updated on what certain baseball teams are doing."
Johnson has three hours of therapy every day, working with parallel bars and practicing naming objects, according to statements by his doctors released by his office. An MRI showed that the speech center of his brain is undamaged. And an angiogram showed that the surgery successfully repaired the original problem, called an arteriovenous malformation.
I really hate these kinds of articles, but it does raise points that need to be thought about: what are the long-term implications of an extended absence for his constituents? The article doesn't offer any answers, just asks the questions.
His key constituencies include farmers, ranchers, veterans, seniors, rural communities. Although his profile is low on Capitol Hill, in South Dakota, a state with fewer people than Prince George's County, residents address their senator as "Tim" when they see him in the coffee shop on Main Street.
"He's one who was never real imbued with the power and the glory, he just wanted to do a good job," says Jerry Oster, news director with WNAX-AM radio in Yankton, who has known Johnson since he was a baby-faced lawyer in Vermillion. "It's part of that Norwegian upbringing. Don't care who gets the credit . . . . We always kid him about being Norwegian powered by coffee."
If Johnson's recuperation lasts longer than several months, then his absence will be felt more keenly. That is when the farm bill will be moving through the Senate, and the appropriations process will be underway.
"Senator Johnson's main impact would come this summer," says Troy Larson, executive director of the Lewis & Clark Rural Water System, which is seeking $35 million for pipeline construction. "It would not be possible for senators in other states to make up that clout."
At least the news of his recovery seems hopeful. Keep him in your thoughts, please.
