US lawmaker among victims of deadly car crash

Republican Congresswoman Jackie Walorski, her two aides, and a driver of another car are killed in Indiana state road accident, police say.

Jackie Walorski was the top Republican on the subcommittee on worker and family support.
AP

Jackie Walorski was the top Republican on the subcommittee on worker and family support.

US Congresswoman Jackie Walorski and two members of her staff died when the vehicle they were travelling in collided head-on with a car that veered into their lane, police in Indiana and her office said.

Walorski, 58, a Republican who represented Indiana's 2nd congressional district in the US House of Representatives, was mourned on Wednesday as an honourable public servant who strived to work across party lines to deliver for her constituents.

The congresswoman had been travelling down an Indiana road with her communications chief, Emma Thomson, 28, and one of her district directors, Zachery Potts, 27, the Elkhart County Sheriff's Office said.

"A northbound passenger car travelled left of centre and collided head-on" with Walorski's vehicle, killing all three occupants, the sheriff's office said. 

The driver of the other car, 56-year-old Edith Schmucker, was pronounced dead at the scene, near the northern Indiana town of Nappanee, it added.

Confirming her death in a statement shared on Twitter by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, Walorski's office said, "Dean Swihart, Jackie's husband, was just informed by the Elkhart County Sheriff's office that Jackie was killed in a car accident this afternoon."

It added, "Please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers. We will have no further comment at this time."

Admired by colleagues

Walorski was a lifelong resident of Indiana, according to her official biography. 

She served on the House Ways and Means Committee and was the top Republican on the subcommittee on worker and family support.

Prior to her election in 2012 to the House, Walorski served three terms in the Indiana legislature, spent four years as a missionary in Romania along with her husband and worked as a TV news reporter in South Bend, according to a biography posted on her congressional website.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who previously served as mayor of South Bend, wrote on Twitter: "Though we came from very different places politically, she was always prepared to work together where there was common ground".

Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, said in a statement that Walorski "passionately brought the voices of her north Indiana constituents to the Congress, and she was admired by colleagues on both sides of the aisle for her personal kindness."

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