{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://esty.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/esty-honors-families-sandy-hook-victims-calls-action-house-floor", "Esty Honors Families of Sandy Hook Victims, Calls for Action on House Floor", "2017-12-14", "2017", "2017-12", "Democrat", "House", "CT", "Elizabeth Esty", "E000293", "esty.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty (CT-5), a vice-chair of the House\u2019s Gun Violence Prevention Task Force representing Newtown, Connecticut, held a discussion on the House floor on Wednesday night to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 and call for Congress to take action.\u00a0\n\u201cTwenty schoolchildren and six educators \u2013 twenty six and seven year olds \u2013 were ripped from the community of Newtown,\u201d Esty said. \u201cI remember that day. I was a newly-elected Member of Congress, learning about what it means to serve in this august body, when I started to receive e-mails and text messages telling me that something terrible happened at home. And by noon, I learned the worst: that children had been killed.\u00a0\n\u201cI threw my things in the car and drove from Boston. I called my mother, I called my minister, and I prayed for wisdom, guidance, and the courage to face the families. I arrived to find families being notified that the children they had put on the bus that morning \u2013 children who were thinking of Hanukkah, of the start of Christmas, and of the newly-fallen snow on the ground \u2013 those children would never come home.\u00a0\n\u201cIt\u2019s sad. It\u2019s sad and it\u2019s inexcusable that as I stand here five years later, the people\u2019s House still has not taken action.\u201d\nView Rep. Esty\u2019s opening floor remarks from last night\u2019s Special Order Hour by clicking the image above or this link.\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://esty.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/esty-honors-families-sandy-hook-victims-calls-action-house-floor"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7055398784577847, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}