Former Connecticut State Senator Ed Gomes of Bridgeport has died more than a week after a car crash at age 84.
Gomes was a former steelworker and one of Bridgeport’s most visible politicians. He served in public office in the city’s largest state for more than three decades — beginning on the city council in 1983. He sometimes clashed with the city’s Democratic power brokers, and served his last term on the Working Families ticket.
Governor Ned Lamont said Gomes always stood up for what he believed.
“I think he served the people of Bridgeport just passionately. His loss is a loss that I feel desperately, and I know that the people of Bridgeport and the people of the state of Connecticut do as well,” Lamont said.
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal called him a relentless, irrepressible champion of working families. Senate leaders Martin Looney and Bob Duff said in a statement that “Ed could tell a story like no other whether to humanize the most complex policy question or make everyone in a room burst with laughter.”
