Rep.-elect Julia Letlow, who will take her late husband’s spot in Congress, said she’ll use his memory to steer her public service.
Letlow, 40, won a Louisiana special election last week to fill the seat won by Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, 41, who died of COVID-19 complications in December.
JULIA LETLOW, WIDOW OF REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT WHO DIED OF COVID-19, ELECTED HIS SEAT
“I want to be an advocate and a voice for everyone … look at my family, use my story,” Letlow told CBS’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan.
Part of that includes trying to combat hesitation among people on getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, the Louisiana Republican said.
“I’m a huge proponent of the vaccine. It has lifesaving capabilities. And I want to encourage anybody out there who’s eligible to go ahead and get that vaccine. It’s so important,” Letlow said.
Letlow said one of her priorities is expanding broadband access in Louisiana’s 5th District, which encompasses much of the central part of the state, as well as its rural, southeastern parts. Letlow added that she looks forward to tackling pay equity for women.
The representative-elect said she’s had “gracious” calls with former President Donald Trump and President Biden, who shared his own experience of loss with her. When he was first elected to the Senate in the 1970s, Biden lost his first wife and baby daughter in a car crash and later lost his oldest son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, in 2015.
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Letlow, who has a Ph.D. in communication from the University of South Florida, works as an executive at the University of Louisiana, Monroe.
She is the first Republican woman from Louisiana to be elected to Congress and will join the record-breaking class of 30 GOP women already serving in the House.
