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US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar testifies to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis in Washington
Representative Jackie Wallorsky (Rep) speaks as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar testifies before the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) crisis, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., Oct. 2, 2020. Scott Applewhite/Paul via Reuters
Washington, August 4 (BNA) The Indiana police and her office said that US Congresswoman Jackie Walorsky and two of her employees were killed when the car they were traveling in collided with a car that veered in their lane.
President Joe Biden and her congressional colleagues lamented Ali Walorsky, 58, who represented Indiana’s 2nd congressional district in the US House of Representatives, as a respected public servant who strives to work across party lines to serve her constituents.
The White House said it will raise flags in honor of half the staff, Reuters reports.
The Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office said the congresswoman was traveling on Indiana Road Wednesday afternoon with her chief communications officer Emma Thompson, 28, and one of her district managers, Zachary Potts, 27.
The sheriff’s office said, “A northbound passenger car moved left of center and hit its head” with the Walorsky’s vehicle, killing its three occupants. The driver of the other car, Edith Schmocker, 56, died at the scene near the northern Indiana town of Napanee, it added.
Confirming her death in a statement posted on Twitter by House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Walorsky’s office said: “Jackie’s husband Dean Swihart was reported by the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office that Jackie was killed in a car accident this afternoon.”
She added, “Please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers. We will have no further comment at this time.”
Walorsky has been a resident of Indiana her whole life, according to her official biography. She served on the House Ways and Means Committee and was the highest ranking Republican member of the Worker and Family Support Subcommittee.
Before being elected in 2012 to the House of Representatives, Walorsky served three terms in the Indiana state legislature, spent four years as a missionary in Romania with her husband and worked as a television news reporter in South Bend, according to a biography published in Congress. website.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said he and Walorsky “may represent different parties and disagree on many issues, but she has won bipartisan respect for her work on the Ways and Means Committee on which she served.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Democrat, said in a statement that Walorsky “enthusiastically brought the votes of her northern Indiana constituents to Congress, and won the admiration of colleagues on both sides of the aisle for her personal kindness.”