Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) is using a text-to-voice software in order to talk on the Home flooring as she navigates a degenerative mind situation she was lately identified with.
Wexton was identified with progressive supranuclear palsy which impacts her skill to talk, hear, and transfer. When she testified earlier than Congress on Monday, she used the assistive software to discuss laws she launched to rename a submit workplace in her constituency.
“PSP makes it very troublesome for me to talk, and I exploit an assistive app so that you simply and our colleagues can perceive me,” Wexton mentioned by way of the app. “I’m proud to be right here right now talking in assist of my invoice to rename the Purcellville, Virginia, submit workplace in honor of my former constituent.”
Throughout her remarks, she solely briefly touched on her situation earlier than centering the speech across the submit workplace renaming. She is proposing the submit workplace be renamed after fellow Virginian and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
“[Albright] was a fearless trailblazer for ladies and a loyal public servant who touched the lives of so many whom she taught, mentored, and labored with — together with me,” Wexton mentioned.
Wexton was identified with PSP final 12 months after initially being misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s illness. She introduced she would not search reelection this 12 months after representing Virginia’s tenth Congressional District since 2019.
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“I’m heartbroken to have to surrender one thing I’ve liked after so a few years of serving my neighborhood,” Wexton mentioned in an announcement. “However bearing in mind the prognosis for my well being over the approaching years, I’ve made the choice to not search reelection as soon as my time period is full and as an alternative spend my valued time with Andrew, our boys, and my associates and family members.”
She is the primary member of Congress to make use of the sort of assistive expertise. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) makes use of talk-to-text expertise to assist him with auditory processing issues, which make it obscure completely different sounds, introduced on by a stroke he suffered in 2022.
