Seattle Times reports. He later was flown to Florida for treatment, and his family announced that he died Friday. The family didn’t say if he was still in Florida when he died, and it’s unknown if he had been vaccinated against COVID.Ericksen had traveled to El Salvador for reasons not made public, despite the U.S.
State Department cautioning against visiting the Central American nation because of the ongoing pandemic. Members of his family had contracted COVID as well.Ericksen was elected to the state House in 1998 and the Senate in 2010, representing a district in Whatcom County, north of Seattle.
A staunch conservative, he voted against marriage equality in 2012 and more recently had objected to a Washington State Human Rights Commission.