This article is from the archive of our partner .

Democratic Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has been gone for a month and nobody knows where he is or what's wrong with him. Last week, the Chicago lawmaker's office issued a vague statement saying he's dealing with "physical and emotional ailments" and is "undergoing further evaluation and treatment at an in-patient medical facility." Now, members of Congress, including Illinois Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin, are calling on him to be more forthright with his constituents in Chicago's South Side. "As a public official, there comes a point when you have a responsibility to tell the public what's going on," Durbin told Crain’s Chicago Business Monday. Jackson "will soon have to make a report on the physical condition he's struggling with." In a normal job, asking for a few sick days doesn't invite much scrutiny, but when you represent voters and you've been AWOL since June 10, you're asking for a flurry of speculation. Here's what's buzzing in Chicago's rumor mill:

Take him at his word—he's done this before. Though his office's statement is vague, it says due to his "exhaustion" the congressman "will need to receive extended in-patient treatment as well as continuing medical treatment thereafter." Some Democrats, such as Rep. Steny Hoyer, take him at his word, and that may be because Jackson has left his constituents hanging on issues of his health before. For instance, the Chicago Tribune notes that "Seven years ago, Jackson took even longer to publicly disclose medical treatment. In March 2005, he ended weeks of speculation by revealing that his trimmed-down figure was the result of weight-loss surgery performed about three months earlier. Jackson underwent a duodenal switch, described as a minimally invasive surgery that involves cutting out a part of a patient's stomach." Maybe he's just working on the wording of his press release?