Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, 58

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio - Democratic Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress and a strong critic of the Iraq war, died yesterday after a brain hemorrhage, a Cleveland Clinic official said.

Rep. Tubbs Jones, 58, died at 6:12 p.m. after a burst aneurysm left her with limited brain function, spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said.

"Throughout the course of the day and into this evening, Congresswoman Tubbs Jones' medical condition declined," Sheil said in a statement issued by the clinic and the congresswoman's family.

The liberal Democrat, first elected in 1998, suffered the hemorrhage while driving her car in Cleveland Heights on Tuesday night, said Gus Kious, a physician and president of Huron Hospital in East Cleveland.

A brain aneurysm is a bulge in an artery. It can leak or rupture, causing bleeding in the brain.

Rep. Tubbs Jones was a big booster of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton during the primaries and was to be a superdelegate at next week's convention in Denver.

Although she eventually backed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in June, the congresswoman said Obama could not win in the general election unless Clinton's supporters rallied behind him.

She was the first black woman to serve on the Ways and Means Committee, where she opposed President Bush's tax cuts and his efforts to create personal accounts within Social Security.

She was also appointed head of the House ethics committee by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi said at the time she was "tough and smart" and "will provide steadfast and active leadership in a nonpartisan and judicious way, holding members to the highest ethical standard."

The daughter of an airport skycap, Rep. Tubbs Jones earned a law degree from Case Western Reserve University.