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House Taxwriter Walorski Dies in Car Accident

Posted on Aug. 4, 2022

Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., a member of the House Ways and Means Committee since 2017, was killed in a car accident August 3. She was 58.

Walorski was ranking member of the Ways and Means Worker and Family Support Subcommittee and a member of the Oversight Subcommittee. She also was ranking member of the House Ethics Committee.

Members of Congress expressed their condolences following the news of Walorski’s death, with many describing her as caring and kind.

“Congresswoman Jackie Walorski was a happy Hoosier who would light up the room with her joy, passion, brilliance, and love of life,” Ways and Means ranking member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said. “Her Midwestern values of hard work, fairness, and kindness were a model for members.”

Jackie was an instrumental member of our conference, serving as a member of my deputy whip team for several years,” said House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana. “She was a champion for the people of Indiana, and she will be remembered for her kindness, tenacity, and commitment to helping others.”

When Walorski joined the Ways and Means Committee, amid House Republicans’ tax reform push, she told Tax Notes that she wanted reform to benefit the large contingent of manufacturers in her district.

“We’re definitely at the table for tax reform, and Hoosiers always are because of exporting; we’re an agricultural exporting state, a manufacturing exporting state,” Walorski said at the time. “We produce things that people buy, and so [tax reform] is always about the details of what those things look like for us.”

In recent months, Walorski introduced bills to double the research credit (H.R. 8253), create a tax credit for donations to scholarship funds for elementary and secondary school students (H.R. 8137), and shorten the depreciation schedules for property to 20 years (H.R. 7229). Over the years, she also signed on to efforts to cut or repeal the estate tax, repeal the medical device excise tax, and expand retirement savings accounts, among others.

Walorski was first elected to the House in 2012. Her previous committee assignments included Agriculture, Armed Services, Budget, and Veterans’ Affairs.

Before winning election to the U.S. House, Walorski served three terms in the Indiana House of Representatives. Earlier in her career, she worked as a television reporter and as a development director for colleges and universities in Indiana, according to the biography on her House webpage.

Walorski and three others were killed in the two-car accident near Nappanee, Indiana, according to reports. The other victims were Emma Thomson, Walorski’s communications director; Zachery Potts, Walorski’s district director; and Edith Schmucker, the driver of the other car.

Walorski is survived by her husband, Dean Swihart.

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