Three Orlando members in Congress to tell Pulse victims’ stories, introduce resolution

Val Demings, Darren Soto and Stephanie Murphy

Democratic U.S. Reps. Darren Soto and Val Demings of Orlando and Stephanie Murphy of Winter Park intend to cosponsor a resolution in Congress Monday night and spend about an hour on the House of Representatives floor paying tribute to the 49 people murdered at Pulse last year.

The trio attended the Pulse one-year memorial events in Orlando Monday and spoke at the ceremony at the Pulse nightclub, and then intended to fly back to Washington to take the city’s messages of remembrance, sorrow and unity to Congress.

They are expected to appear on the floor around 7 p.m., around the same time as the city-wide vigil scheduled at Orlando’s Lake Eola Park. It will be broadcast on C-SPAN 3.

“It’s in remembrance of the 49 victims we lost here in Orlando, and reinforcing the notion that we need to have acceptance of the LGBTQ community, as well as the amazing unity that our community has shown after this tragedy,” Soto said while appearing at the Sea-to-Sea Flag unfurling at the Orange County Administration Building.

“We’ll be doing an hour-long ‘Special Order’ on the House floor where we’ll be reading many of the stories of victims into the record,” Soto said.

In a press release, Demings added, “We will not forget the 49 men and women who were killed on June 12, 2016,” said Representative Val Demings, whose district includes the Pulse nightclub.

“Our community is still healing, family and friends are still mourning the lives of their loved ones, and survivors are still recovering from tragedy,” Demings added.

Scott Powers

Scott Powers is an Orlando-based political journalist with 30+ years’ experience, mostly at newspapers such as the Orlando Sentinel and the Columbus Dispatch. He covers local, state and federal politics and space news across much of Central Florida. His career earned numerous journalism awards for stories ranging from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster to presidential elections to misplaced nuclear waste. He and his wife Connie have three grown children. Besides them, he’s into mystery and suspense books and movies, rock, blues, basketball, baseball, writing unpublished novels, and being amused. Email him at [email protected].



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