Hillary Clinton honored Rep. Louise Slaughter (D) on Friday, praising the New York lawmaker who died earlier in the day as a “tireless advocate for her constituents.”
Clinton tweeted that Slaughter “showed me the ropes” when the former first lady was first elected to the Senate in 2000 and “did the same for so many of our colleagues.”
“I was lucky to call her a friend. She will be missed,” Clinton wrote. {mosads}
Slaughter, an institution in New York politics who in 2007 became the first woman to take the gavel of the powerful House Rules Committee, died Friday morning at the age of 88.
“To have met Louise Slaughter is to have known a force of nature. She was a relentless advocate for Western New York whose visionary leadership brought infrastructure upgrades, technology, and research investments, and two federal manufacturing institutes to Rochester that will transform the local economy for generations to come,” Slaughter’s chief of staff Liam Fitzsimmons said in a statement.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) hailed Slaughter as “a trailblazer” in the fight for universal health care and empowering women in politics, while Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer praised his fellow New Yorker as a “giant.”
“She had deep convictions — on both issues important to the people of Rochester, and for the integrity and honesty of the political system,” Schumer said in a statement.
“The ferocity of her advocacy was matched only by the depth of her compassion and humanity.”