Democratic Representative Donald Payne Jr., Passes Away from Cardiac Complications; New Jersey Governor Mourns ‘Steadfast Champion’

The Democratic congressman Donald Payne Jr., who represented New Jersey’s 10th District in the US House of Representatives, passed away recently according to Speaker Mike Johnson. Grieving for the loss is New Jersey Democrat Governor Phil Murphy as well who mentioned in his statement that they have lost a “friend and steadfast champion” for their people. Payne had been hospitalised due to cardiac issues triggered by complications caused from diabetes at the start of March this year, according to an announcement made by his office then.
Payne’s father Donald Milford Payne was also a prominent political figure as he became New Jersey’s first African-American congressman in 1989 and served until his death in 2012 after which Jr succeeded him through a special election. The younger Payne had been involved with various health related caucuses within Congress, serving as co-chair of the Congressional Colorectal Cancer Caucus, Congressional Men’s Health Caucus and the Congressional Peripheral Artery Disease Caucus to name a few.
As an African American representative, Payne presented members from his district for Black excellence along with other caucus representatives in 2017 when they handed former President Donald Trump a policy document on advancing black families as part of the Congressional Black Caucus’s efforts towards helping African-American communities. “The Congressional Black Caucus has been very clear to President Trump that African American communities have a lot to lose under his administration,” he stated at that time.
In addition, Payne was involved with multiple committees within the House including being Ranking Member of one subcommittee for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the US Congress’s lower chamber known as the House of Representatives. The New Jersey primary has already commenced but assuming Jr wins this election (as there are no other named candidates on the ballot), it will be up to local Democratic parties to name a replacement candidate for November’s general elections, while Governor Murphy also needs to announce that he’ll hold another special vote to fill out the remaining time of Payne’s term.
With this news and Wisconsin Republican Rep Mike Gallagher resigning from office earlier on, Democrats will now have 212 members in Congress whereas Republicans will stand at 217-giving Speaker Johnson only a marginally close party-line votes (a two vote gap). This report has been updated to include additional details.