{"id":41851,"date":"2022-03-04T20:08:17","date_gmt":"2022-03-05T03:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-ben-ray-lujan-returns-to-congress-after-stroke\/"},"modified":"2022-03-05T03:08:17","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T03:08:17","slug":"sen-ben-ray-lujan-returns-to-congress-after-stroke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-ben-ray-lujan-returns-to-congress-after-stroke\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n returns to Congress after stroke"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lujan\"
Lujan<\/span>Patrick Semansky<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n of New Mexico<\/a> returned to Congress on Thursday for the first time since he had a stroke, which kept him away from Washington for weeks and temporarily weakened Democrat\u2019s hold on power in the equally divided Senate.<\/p>\n

Luj\u00e1n received a standing ovation as he entered a morning hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Teary-eyed, he thanked colleagues for their support and told them: \u201cIt\u2019s an absolute honor to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery one of you that sent me notes, that sent videos, and all the prayers — it worked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Luj\u00e1n, 49, began experiencing dizziness and fatigue on Jan. 27 and checked himself into a hospital in Santa Fe his office said. He was diagnosed<\/a> as having had a stroke in the cerebellum and he had surgery to ease swelling in his brain.<\/p>\n

His sudden absence had put new strain<\/a> on Democrats\u2019 fragile 50-50 majority in the Senate, leaving them without full day-to-day control of the chamber and putting President Joe Biden\u2019s legislative agenda and Supreme Court nomination in doubt. But Luj\u00e1n, in a video message in February<\/a>, vowed to return after a few weeks of recovery at inpatient rehabilitation facility.<\/p>\n

In a 50-50 Senate, Luj\u00e1n\u2019s vote could prove critical if Democrats have to confirm Supreme Court nominee Kentanji Brown Jackson without the help of Republicans. His return could also help jump-start work on other legislation and nominations that Republicans oppose.<\/p>\n

Elected to the Senate in 2020, Luj\u00e1n is a quiet but well-known lawmaker on Capitol Hill who helped lead Democrats to the House majority with its record-breaking class of freshmen recruits heading the campaign committee during the 2018 election year. Senators of both parties had been pulling for his recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love you Ben Ray and we\u2019re glad you\u2019re with us here today,\u201d Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said at the hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LujanPatrick Semansky WASHINGTON \u2013 Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n of New Mexico returned to Congress on Thursday for the first time since he had a stroke, which kept him away from Washington for weeks and temporarily weakened Democrat\u2019s hold on power in the equally divided Senate. Luj\u00e1n received a standing ovation as he entered a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815,138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41851"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}