WASHINGTON, D.C. - It has been three weeks since U.S. Rep. Lane Evans returned to Congress after an extended leave due to illness, and while his health continues to be an issue, the Democrat from Rock Island said he is doing the job his constituents expect.

However, for most of his three weeks back at work, Evans has not cast votes.

Between June 7 and Thursday, when Congress adjourned for the Independence Day holiday, Evans voted only 14 of 131 times, a stark departure for a congressman who has taken pride in the 97 percent voting record he had before his health took a turn for the worse in February.

Evans missed votes on two appropriations bills and another vote on a Republican measure opposing a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

In fact, the last vote Evans cast was June 15 on a procedural measure related to the troop withdrawal resolution.

A 12-term congressman in Illinois' 17th District, Evans announced in late March that he would not seek re-election this year because of his battle with Parkinson's disease, a neurological disorder he was diagnosed with in 1995.

At the same time, Evans said he would serve out his current term.

His decision not to run again was a shock to many, and it came amid what ended up being a nearly four-month absence that was unprecedented for him. During that time, he was hospitalized briefly.

Evans returned to Congress the first week of June.

Since then, his chief aide says, Evans has directed the office staff and worked, as the ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, to coordinate the response of Democrats on that panel to the loss of a laptop computer containing personal information for 26 million military veterans.

"I talk to him every day," said Dennis King, Evans' chief of staff, who also was appointed his guardian during a court hearing

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