It’s been a long journey for the freshman Senator from Pennsylvania, and he’s only a few months into his first term.
Four days before his May 2022 primary win, then Lt. Governor and Democratic candidate for the Senate John Fetterman suffered a stroke.
While his campaign at first downplayed the severity of his stroke, he ultimately brought the same spirit of fight for which he is known in Pennsylvania to his recovery and was eventually able to do interviews and live debates, after a summer of limited campaign engagements. A lot was riding on those first national appearances.
Fetterman’s debate and interview performance sparked criticisms due to his use of closed captioning to assist with auditory functioning delays due to his stroke, even though the campaign released cognitive test results that showed normal functioning for a person his age. An interview with NBC News amplified a Republican ableist smear against Fetterman, after which disability expert and PoliticusUSA’s Jason Easley explained:
The NBC News interview was discriminatory to John Fetterman and the disabled community. Dascha Burns, the interviewer, was not interested in Fetterman’s policy positions but instead wanted to talk about the candidate’s temporary disability and use it as a factor that should give voters concern.
But in the end, Fetterman rallied, his supporters never wavered, and he eventually won his election against Republican Mehmet Oz, who is from New Jersey and has ever so kindly disappeared after his brutal loss.
Then, almost as soon as he had arrived in the Senate, the Democratic Senator checked in to George Washington University hospital after feeling lightheaded. Later, he spent six weeks hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for depression, after which he returned to his home in Braddock, Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh.
Although Fetterman had depression on and off before his stroke, about a third of people who’ve had a stroke suffer from some form of clinical depression. Fetterman’s case was severe. He spent several weeks at home before returning to the Senate this week for the first time since mid-February.
While political opponents continue to lambaste Fetterman over his health issues, suggesting his stroke made him unfit for office, Fetterman used his first week back to advocate for issues that sent him to D.C., like introducing legislation to ban Members from stock trading and holding a hearing on SNAP benefits.
Fetterman ran on issues like holding Congress accountable with a ban on stock trading, and he began his first week back making good on that promise.
On Tuesday, Fetterman, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM), along with House colleagues Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Michael Cloud (R-TX), introduced the ETHICS Act (Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks, Act) — a bipartisan bill that would ban members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent minors from owning or trading stocks, commodities, or futures.
“Lawmakers should not be able to profit off the same companies that they are regulating. Letting members of Congress trade stocks opens the door to corruption. Lawmakers should be focused on getting results for their constituents — not lining their own pockets,” Fetterman said at the press conference introducing the bill.
Lest anyone think it’s just Democrats and scattering of Republicans who support this, Republican Senator Josh Hawley is also pushing a bill to ban Members from trading, which he, with the petty spirit of an always finger-pointing Republican, named after Democratic Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.
Just imagine focusing that much on Nancy Pelosi as the source for unethical behavior after four years of the Trump family grift in the White House and then Trump’s attempted self-coup attack on the Capitol, about which Hawley seemed pretty supportive — that is, when he wasn’t running away in fear.
At any rate, Hawley’s bill would require members found in violation to return their profits to American taxpayers, which is a pretty great concept that will never happen, name-calling childishness aside.
But Fetterman’s bill is co-sponsored by 20 other Senators and is more realistic in scope, although it seems unlikely that a Republican-led House would pass anything related to upholding ethics.
A stock trading ban is desperately needed. It was just reported that when SVB collapsed and, as Stephanie Ruhle put it, “Congress had loads of information that NO ONE else did, members on both sides of the aisle &/or their spouses became active bank stock traders!”
The @nytimes reports that congressional lawmakers sold bank stocks amid the banking crisis. @katekelly, who broke the story, has the details. pic.twitter.com/5oOc0ANN2t
— Last Call (@LastCallCNBC) April 19, 2023
The ETHICS Act is not Fetterman’s first bill. His first piece of legislation was the Railway Accountability Act, after the horrific train derailment and explosion in East Palestine, Ohio.
Fetterman has also been a consistent and strong supporter of women’s medical freedom in the post Roe world, for example he met with advocates from Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania to discuss access to sexual and reproductive healthcare at the end of January.
After the Trump judge tried to ban the abortion pill, Fetterman issued a blunt statement, “This ruling by a hard-right Trump appointed judge is simply bullshit.This is nothing more than another attempt by the GOP to take away the rights of women and implement a nationwide abortion ban. Mifepristone remains safe and legal in Pennsylvania. We will fight this, and we will win.”
On Wednesday, Fetterman led his first hearing as Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research, focused on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program), which was rather timely given the Republican demand to cut funding to SNAP.
Fetterman’s comments on SNAP are the kind of messaging politicians try to buy but can’t seem to carry off:
“It’s time to come together and stop playing political games with Americans’ access to food.”
“Cut SNAP for families and kids while pushing tax cuts for billionaires? Not on my watch.”
This is the Fetterman that Pennsylvanians know. He is, at this political moment in history, both an antidote to Trumpism and also a successful product of post-Trump populism. Trump is the one who made it a sign of authenticity to swear, after all.
Fetterman has had a rocky start due to health challenges, but he has also shown up in the important ways. He has pushed through to hold up his end of the bargain with voters to be the fighter they elected.
Fetterman has also unwittingly become a symbol of what it can mean to stop judging people based on their disability and or mental health challenges, and instead judge them on what they do.
This man, while imperfect and flawed as all of us are, represents so much hope for change and true care for the people. We are just holding our breath, hoping he continues his fight for a nation that desperately needs more elected officials like him.