Ailing S.D. senator plans a visit home

South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson will make a public appearance when he visits Sioux Falls later this month, his first since a brain hemorrhage eight months ago.

Johnson, a Democrat, is to appear on Aug. 28, his office announced Thursday. He is expected to return to the Senate in September.

A statement issued by Johnson's office said the event will be "a welcome home celebration in which Sen. Johnson will personally thank the people of South Dakota for their support."

The senator has been recovering at hospitals and in his Fairfax, Va., home and has not appeared in public since he suffered the life-threatening hemorrhage in December. He has been undergoing speech therapy and is expected to use a scooter to get around in the Capitol.

In a written statement released by his office earlier this month, Johnson said his doctors had cleared him for travel.

"I know my return has taken longer than some people have liked _ count me among them," he said.

After remaining quiet for many months, Republicans have recently begun to publicly discuss Johnson's re-election bid next year. Two Republicans have said they would seek the seat: Republican state Rep. Joel Dykstra and Sam Kephart, a self-employed businessman.

Johnson, who won re-election in 2002 by just 524 votes, was considered a top GOP target before he became ill last year. He has not indicated whether he will run again, but Senate colleagues have held multiple fundraisers, raising $1.3 million for him by the end of June.

Johnson, 60, was rushed from his Senate office to George Washington University Hospital after becoming disoriented on a conference call with reporters. He underwent emergency surgery for arteriovenous malformation, a condition that causes arteries and veins in the brain to grow abnormally large, become tangled and sometimes burst.

He was stricken a month after elections that gave the Democrats a one-seat majority in the Senate, and his ailment raised the possibility that, if he died or resigned, South Dakota's GOP governor would appoint a Republican successor and return the Senate to GOP control.