First openly gay lawmaker elected to a statewide office dies

The former Vermont auditor of accounts and state senator credited as the first openly gay lawmaker in the country elected to statewide office has died.

Ed Flanagan died Friday at a nursing home in New Hampshire. He was 66.

Vermont Democratic State Rep. Mary Sullivan, who had been friends with Flanagan for decades, said Saturday she had planned to visit Flanagan on Friday but arrived shortly after his death.

Flanagan suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2005 car crash that left him in a coma for several weeks. Sullivan said Flanagan’s declining health in recent years was a result of those injuries.