New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver has died at age 71.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s office announced her death shortly after noon on Tuesday. A day earlier, Oliver had been hospitalized, leaving state Senate President Nicholas P. Scutari as acting governor while Murphy remained on a planned vacation out of the country.
“She was not only a distinguished public servant but also our cherished daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and hero,” Oliver’s family said in a statement issued via Murphy’s office.
The statement didn’t disclose how Oliver died, and the governor’s office hasn’t said why she was hospitalized.
“As we come to terms with this profound loss, we kindly request that you respect the privacy of the Oliver family during this difficult time as they grieve their beloved Sheila,” the family’s statement said.
Murphy, in a separate statement, described his running mate of two elections as a “trailblazer in every sense of the word.”
“She had already made history as the first Black woman to serve as speaker of the General Assembly, and just the second Black woman in the nation’s history to lead a house of a state legislature,” he said. ” I knew then that her decades of public service made her the ideal partner for me to lead the state of New Jersey. It was the best decision I ever made.”
Oliver and Murphy served together for more than five years. Oliver also headed the state’s Department of Community Affairs, which Murphy described as “handling some of the most challenging issues facing our state, including the revitalization of our cities, affordable housing obligations, and homelessness prevention..”
“As someone who was born and raised in Newark, and who has called East Orange home for more than 40 years, Sheila did not view these issues in the abstract because she lived with them every day of her life,” Murphy said. “She brought a unique and invaluable perspective to our public policy discourse and served as an inspiration to millions of women and girls everywhere, especially…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply