{"id":190741,"date":"2018-11-23T05:15:07","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T10:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=190741"},"modified":"2018-11-23T05:15:07","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T10:15:07","slug":"ny-state-sen-jose-peralta-dies-at-47-wife-says-he-fell-ill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/23\/ny-state-sen-jose-peralta-dies-at-47-wife-says-he-fell-ill\/","title":{"rendered":"NY state Sen. Jose Peralta dies at 47; wife says he fell ill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Peralta died Wednesday night at Elmhurst Hospital, spokesman Chris Sosa said. The cause of death has not been determined. (File photo<\/a>: @SenatorPeralta\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 State Sen. Jose Peralta, a New York lawmaker who was the first Dominican-American elected to the Senate, has died. The Democrat was 47 and nearing the end of nearly two decades in office after losing a primary this fall.<\/p>\n

Peralta died Wednesday night at Elmhurst Hospital, spokesman Chris Sosa said. The cause of death has not been determined.<\/p>\n

Peralta’s wife, Evelyn, told reporters he had felt pressure behind his ears and headaches for a week or more and had seen a doctor, according to local news outlets. But his condition didn’t raise alarms until he developed a fever Tuesday and became disoriented and had trouble breathing Wednesday, when he was taken to a hospital, she said.<\/p>\n

His wife said the family believes his illness was an infection but is awaiting autopsy results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really don’t know what happened,\u201d she said. \u201c… He just took a turn for the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peralta represented parts of Queens in New York’s Senate for eight years and served in the state Assembly for eight years before that. As a senator, he was a member of a breakaway Democratic group that, for a time, formed a coalition with Republicans to control the chamber.<\/p>\n

News of his death brought an outpouring of sympathy from officials and the soon-to-be-senator who ousted him in September’s primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I met him in 2003, I saw a world of promise for our community,\u201d Sen.-elect Jessica Ramos wrote on Twitter. \u201cThough years later we’d disagree on tackling the issues, I know in his heart he loved his community. He was a true public servant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, called Peralta \u201ca relentless advocate for Queens\u201d who \u201cfought tirelessly to make a difference for others.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Assembly Speaker and fellow Democrat Carl Heastie recalled Peralta’s commitment to public schools, gun safety and immigrant rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis constituents remained his top priority\u201d even after his primary loss, Heastie said in a statement, noting that Peralta was co-ordinating a flu shot clinic in his district and distributing Thanksgiving turkeys to the needy only days ago.<\/p>\n

Peralta started his state political career in 2002, when he was elected to the Assembly. He won a special election in 2010 to the state Senate and was re-elected in four general elections.<\/p>\n

He later became a member of the now-defunct Independent Democratic Conference, the splinter group that helped maintain Republican control of the chamber. Cuomo brokered a deal earlier this year to reunify Senate Democrats, but six of the IDC’s eight former members were soon ousted in party primaries.<\/p>\n

Peralta’s survivors include his wife and two sons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 State Sen. Jose Peralta, a New York lawmaker who was the first Dominican-American elected to the Senate, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":190742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}