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WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. Rep. Ron Wright has died after testing positive for COVID-19 last month, his office said Monday (Feb. 8), making him the first member of the U.S. Congress to die. due to the pandemic disease that has claimed nearly 464,000 American lives.
Wright, a 67-year-old Republican from Texas, had also been battling cancer. He was elected to Congress in 2018 and served on the House Foreign Relations and Education and Labor Committees.
Dozens of legislators in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have contracted COVID-19 or been exposed to the deadly virus in the past year.
Wright is the only member of Congress to succumb to the disease. Luke Letlow, a 41-year-old Republican from Louisiana who won Congressional elections in November, died of COVID-19 late last year before he could take office.
“Congressman Wright will be remembered as a constitutional conservative. He was a statesman, not an ideologue,” his office said in a statement.
“Despite years of painful, sometimes debilitating cancer treatment, Ron never lacked the desire to get up and go to work, to motivate those around him, or to offer parental advice,” the statement said.
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