Area lawmakers respond to Arizona shooting
The news made U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk's stomach lurch.
While watching football at a Northbrook deli Saturday, Kirk was hit with the news that Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others at a political event had been shot _ leaving six dead, including a federal judge and Giffords fighting for her life.
“I was shocked,” Kirk said Saturday afternoon.
Kirk was among the Illinois congressional delegation members extending their sympathy Saturday to Giffords and the other victims, as well as their families, and praising Giffords as a hardworking, effective, caring and friendly congresswoman.
Police say Giffords, 40, was shot in the head by a gunman, now in custody, who opened fire outside a grocery store where she was meeting with voters. A federal judge, a Giffords' staff member and a 9-year-old girl were among the dead.
“Gabby is great friend of mine,” 9th District Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Evanston said Saturday. “I speak in the present because I'm praying for her survival and recovery.”
Schakowsky, who became friends with Giffords as members of the Democratic Women's Caucus, said initial reports were that her friend had died, and she breathed a sigh of relief once it became clear she was still alive.
Kirk and Giffords traveled some of the same paths to the nation's capital and, he says, they bonded in the House as they both pushed moderate viewpoints and tried to reach across the aisle, albeit from different sides of it.
Giffords, like Kirk, graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She inherited Kirk's Longworth building House office after his election to the Senate.
They also worked together on U.S.-China relations. Kirk recalled speaking to Giffords recently, a day or two after he had been sworn in to fill the remainder of President Barack Obama's expiring senatorial term.
“She was joking with me, asking who was going to work on China now that (I had left the House),” Kirk said.
Republican Congresswoman Judy Biggert, of Hinsdale, called Giffords a “Blue Dog,” a reference to her willingness to be bipartisan. The two worked together on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Giffords was inspired by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.
“She always just had a big smile on her face, she was talkative, she cared about what she was doing,” Biggert said.
Congressman Peter Roskam, a Wheaton Republican, had a relatively close connection to Giffords, as the two appeared together on a National Public Radio program shortly after they sworn into office in 2007 and again last Wednesday. In the most recent broadcast, both members of Congress expressed a desire to work together and keep open the lines of communication between each other and their parties.
Meanwhile, Capitol police on Saturday asked members of Congress to be more vigilant about security.
Schakowsky pointed out that Giffords had received threats. And Schakowsky said that even her own district office windows had been broken at one point.
While some Congress members expressed concern about safety, Biggert said she hopes the shooting wouldn't stop the “time-honored tradition” of elected officials meeting in public with their constituents.
Kirk said he planned to reach out to Giffords and her husband and that the pair would be “overwhelmed by supporters.”
He said Giffords is a “thoughtful, effective legislator” who, no matter the circumstance, remained “very upbeat, always smiling.”