DALLAS — U.S. Rep. Ron Wright was a husband, a father to three, a grandfather to nine, and a good friend to many.
Wright, R-Arlington, died on Feb. 7, a statement from his campaign announced Monday. He was 67 years old.
“Proverbs 18 says, 'There is a friend who sticks closer than any brother.' And if you knew Ron Wright you knew that fit him. Ron was a friend to all who knew him and never met a stranger," said Will Busby, the Dallas County Republican Party Director of Development and Communications. Busby was a close friend who says he was always impressed that Wright managed to stay “above the fray” in his time working in politics.
After a long stint as an Arlington city councilman, Wright served a couple of terms as the Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector. Most recently, he was a second-term member of Congress. Through it all, Busby says Wright was steadfast in his conservative ideals, but that in this age of hyper-partisanship and often bitter rhetoric, Wright was as well-known for his genteel political manner as he was for wearing his trademark bowtie.
“He was a true statesman, and he wasn’t going to lower himself to ad hominem attacks. He wasn’t going to do that because that wasn’t who he was," Busby said.
Wright was also known as a penny pincher. And one of his unfinished goals in Congress was to help overhaul the tax system. Yet, the fiscally conservative Republican once marveled at the irony that he voted to create a lot more debt by helping to pass COVID-19 relief to ease the economic calamities caused by the pandemic.
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Busby says Wright frequently "prayed, pondered about, and soul searched” before making such decisions and that as averse as he was to deficit spending, Wright knew “Americans were struggling."
In the end, COVID-19 would affect the congressman personally. Wright and his wife were both hospitalized with the virus in January, at a time when he also battling lung cancer.
Wright is now the first sitting member of Congress to die after contracting COVID-19.
"It is truly sad, but I know he is standing there, and he has run the race and he is being told, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant' because he truly lived his life to serve his [heavenly] Father--to serve his creator--and to make the world a better place," Busby said.
Wright took some controversial positions during his time in office. In fact, one of his final votes was against certifying part of the Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden. There are plenty of people who might vehemently disagree with that and some of his other political positions. But Busby says Wright never held that against anyone.
“It didn’t matter if you voted for him or not…if you were a Democrat or a Republican…if you had an issue that he was able to fix, you could count on the fact that Ron Wright was going to get that fixed. We lost someone who truly loved service more than self."