Adams684 (@Adams684)

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/28/dead-lawmakers-social-media-00429884 After Zohran Mamdani’s apparent victory in the New York Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) liked an Instagram post congratulating him on his win. The only problem — Jackson Lee died last July. From ghost-likes and new profile pictures to a posthumous endorsement, accounts for dead lawmakers have seemingly resurrected on social media in an unsettling trend of beyond-the-grave engagement. “Dear White Staffers,” an anonymous account dedicated to highlighting experiences and perspectives of non-white congressional staffers, on Wednesday posted a screenshot of a notification that the late Texas representative’s account had liked the congratulatory post for Mamdani, captioning the screengrab with a quizzical emoji. But Jackson Lee isn’t the only deceased lawmaker whose presence continues to be felt online. Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Democrat who filled Lee’s Texas seat for a brief two months before his own passing in March 2025, appeared to change his profile picture on X three weeks after he died. “Happy #OpeningDay!” Turner’s personal account posted on MLB Opening Day, adding the hashtag “NewProfilePic” along with a photo of the late lawmaker holding a baseball. A community guidelines note affixed by X to the post noted that “Sylvester Turner died on March 5, 2025.” The post appeared to shock many X users, who commented on how uncanny it was to see the deceased lawmaker active on their feeds. “Grim,” one user wrote, while another asked: “So no one on his team thinks this is weird?” Former Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who died in May, has also