Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined the debate surrounding Rep. Jesse Jackson's medical leave by urging patience, saying that Congress will still be there when the lawmaker is ready to return to work, the Chicago Tribune reports.
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"I know a lot of people are saying when is he going to get back to work, he should get back to work — why would he go back to work to a Congress that does no work," said Emanuel, a former congressman. "Why rush? Take care of your health. Guess what? Congress is going to be there." Emanuel said that when someone is dealing with emotional and mental health issues, it doesn't just affect the individual, but the family, so he’s approaching it from that perspective. "Just because you're in public life doesn't mean your zone of privacy ends,” Emanuel said. The Jackson disclosure on Wednesday capped a day in which questions, speculation and denunciations over the Jackson mystery stretched from the U.S. Capitol to a downtown Chicago hotel where Jackson's father held the annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition convention.
Jackson has been absent from his House job since June 10 and has missed 90 roll-call votes, including the Republicans' much-trumpeted move Wednesday to repeal Obama's health care law in the wake of last month's Supreme Court decision.
Read more at the Chicago Tribune.
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