At the age of 77 on Thursday due to complications associated with cancer treatment, the American Congressman Raúl Grijalva, who represented Arizona in the House of Representatives, died in the House of Representatives. During his long -term work in the legislature, he advocated the environmental protection, TASR writes, according to AP and Reuters reports.
“More than twenty years ago, Grijalva set out on a journey to become the voice of the inhabitants of South Arizona in Washington,” is stated in the statement of his office. “He was driven by his civic values and spirit tirelessly and has achieved a lot – for Arizona for the country,” the statement said.
Grijalv’s death will temporarily increase the tight majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives to 218 to 213, with four places unoccupied. Extraordinary elections will have to be held to fill the free space after the Democrat, Written by Reuters.
Grijalva, the son of a Mexican immigrant, was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2002. Most of his career was devoted to work in the field of environmental in the Committee for Natural Resources. During his work in the Congress, he advocated the protection of endangered animal species, as well as for stricter regulations for the oil and gas industry.
In April last year he announced that he was diagnosed with cancer, but he will be able to continue his work. Therefore, he also tried again to re -election, which he did without problems.
In July last year after the first pre -election debate among the then President Joe Biden and Presidential candidate Donald Trump As a second congressman for a democratic party, he called on Biden to withdraw his re -candidacy for unconvincing performance in the discussion.
