GOP Rep. Wright, whob ttledhe lth issues, dies t 67

AUSTIN, TEXAS >> Republican Rep. Ron Wright of Texas, who had lung cancer and was hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19 last month, has died, his office said Monday. He was 67.

Wright died Sunday, spokesman Matt Langston said. He said he didn’t know the cause of death, but the two-term congressman and his wife, Susan, had been admitted to a Dallas hospital in the previous two weeks after contracting COVID-19.

Wright announced shortly after being sworn in for a new term that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. He was also hospitalized last year over treatment for lung cancer complications.

“Despite years of painful, sometimes debilitating treatment for cancer, Ron never lacked the desire to get up and go to work, to motivate those around him, or to offer fatherly advice,” his office said in a statement.

Wright is the first sitting member of Congress to die after contracting COVID-19. In December, an incoming Republican member of the U.S. House, Luke Letlow of Louisiana, died of complications related to the virus only days before the 41-year-old would have been sworn into office.

Wright had said he tested positive for COVID-19 after coming into contact with an infected person, and he described his early symptoms as minor and said he would quarantine.

Langston said Wright never received a vaccination and was believed to have contracted the virus in Washington after he returned in early January for the swearing-in ceremony. Another Texas member of Congress, Republican U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, also announced that she had tested positive around that time.

President Joe Biden called Wright “a fighter who battled bravely against both cancer and COVID-19, diseases that our nation will continue working tirelessly every day to defeat in the memory of all those we have lost.” Similar tributes rolled in, including from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who mentioned the broader toll of the pandemic.