Ill South Dakotan kept Senate seat 40 years ago

[Ron Burgundy]

Reuters - Nearly 40 years ago, a U.S. senator from South Dakota suffered an illness that sidelined him for years, yet he kept his Senate seat.

Historians on Thursday cited the case of Karl Mundt to show that U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson (news, bio, voting record) of South Dakota, who was in critical condition after brain surgery, could keep his seat and maintain the Democrats' majority in the Senate even if he could not attend to Senate duties for a long period.

Republican Mundt suffered a severe stroke in 1969, preventing him from being able to perform his duties. Yet he refused to resign and kept his Senate seat until he retired in 1973, according to the Senate Historian's Office.

"In 1972, he was stripped of his committee assignments by his Republican senatorial colleagues," said Jon Van Patten, a professor at the University of South Dakota Law School. Yet he remained a senator.

Mundt, South Dakota's longest serving senator, did not run for re-election in November of 1972, retiring after four six-year terms.

Under South Dakota law, the state's Republican governor would name someone to finish the final two years of Johnson's term if he died or resigned. But Johnson could stay in office if he were incapacitated.

Neurologists said Johnson, listed in critical condition on Thursday after brain surgery, stood a good chance of recovery.

And the 59-year-old senator's Democratic and Republican colleagues voiced hope he would soon be back on Capitol Hill.