It began this year with a Texas Democrat: Sylvester Turner, the former mayor of Houston who had joined the House at the age of 70. He died two months into his freshman term.
That was quickly followed by the deaths of two veteran Democrats: Raúl M. Grijalva, 77, of Arizona, who for years held the top slot on the Natural Resources Committee, and then Virginia’s Gerald E. Connolly, 75, who had risen to become ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The three deaths within three months were no statistical anomaly, but rather a continuation of a trend stretching back decades. In the last nearly 25 years, twice as many Democrats have died in office as their Republican counterparts. A disproportionate number have been Black, according to an analysis by CQ Roll Call.
