{"id":42402,"date":"2022-02-02T22:22:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T05:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-lujan-suffers-stroke-expected-to-make-full-recovery\/"},"modified":"2022-02-03T05:22:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T05:22:37","slug":"sen-lujan-suffers-stroke-expected-to-make-full-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-lujan-suffers-stroke-expected-to-make-full-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Luj\u00e1n suffers stroke, expected to make ‘full recovery’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sen.
Sen. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., is recovering at an Albuquerque hospital after suffering a stroke last week, his office said in a statement issued Tuesday. He is expected to make a full recovery according to his chief of staff. (Patrick Semansky\/Associated Press file)<\/span>Patrick Semansky<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n of New Mexico is expected to make a full recovery after suffering a stroke and being hospitalized last week, when he began to experience dizziness and fatigue, according to his chief of staff.<\/p>\n

The 49-year-old Democrat checked himself into a hospital in Santa Fe on Jan. 27. His chief of staff, Carlos Sanchez, said the senator was then transferred to a hospital in Albuquerque for further evaluation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenator Luj\u00e1n was found to have suffered a stroke in the cerebellum, affecting his balance,\u201d the statement released Tuesday said. \u201cAs part of his treatment plan, he subsequently underwent decompressive surgery to ease swelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

His office added that Luj\u00e1n is still in the hospital but is expected to make a full recovery.<\/p>\n

It was initially unclear when Lujan would return to the Senate and what impact his absence would have.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters he was anticipating Lujan\u2019s \u201cquick return to the Senate,\u201d adding, \u201cI believe the Senate will be able to carry forward with its business.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in Lujan\u2019s absence, Democrats would have just 49 votes compared with Republicans\u2019 50, assuming all other senators are healthy. There might be instances in which Democrats would lack the votes needed to approve legislation or nominations over unanimous GOP opposition.<\/p>\n

Democrats will retain majority control of the chamber because its membership is divided 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to cast tie-breaking votes.<\/p>\n

New Mexico\u2019s other senator, Democrat Martin Heinrich, sent his regards to Luj\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that all of my fellow senators and our constituents in New Mexico join me in sending our best wishes to him, his family, and his staff,\u201d he wrote in a tweet.<\/p>\n

The surgery Luj\u00e1n underwent is a decompressive craniectomy, which temporarily removes a piece of the skull to allow a swelling brain room to expand.<\/p>\n

Luj\u00e1n won the Senate seat in 2020 after serving six terms in the House, where he was a trusted ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As one of the highest-ranking Latinos in Congress, Luj\u00e1n led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party\u2019s arm that supports House candidates, in the 2016 and 2018 elections.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., is recovering at an Albuquerque hospital after suffering a stroke last week, his office said in a statement issued Tuesday. He is expected to make a full recovery according to his chief of staff. (Patrick Semansky\/Associated Press file)Patrick Semansky WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n of New Mexico […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42403,"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-42402","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\/42402","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=42402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42402"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}