[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 7 (Tuesday, January 12, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H293]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE STATE OF THE UNION'S EMPTY SEAT

  (Ms. HAHN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. HAHN. Mr. Speaker, tonight, for the first time, there will be one 
empty seat in our First Lady's box for the State of the Union Address. 
One seat will be left open next to Ryan Reyes, whose boyfriend, Daniel 
Kaufman, was shot and killed in the recent terrorist attack in San 
Bernardino. That open seat will represent Daniel and all of the 
Americans who have lost their lives to gun violence.
  Tonight, when I look at that empty chair, I am going to be thinking 
about Mary Matsumoto, a 72-year-old woman who was shot and killed in 
San Pedro last January; Armando Bejar, a 15-year-old boy who was shot 
and killed in Compton in September; Lucille Wills, a 74-year-old woman 
who was shot and killed in Carson in April; Emmanuel Sosa, an 18-year-
old young man who was shot and killed in Wilmington, California, in 
June.
  That seat will represent the 436 people who have been shot and killed 
in just Los Angeles County alone since the last State of the Union. 
Heartbreakingly, if we were to save empty seats for each one of those 
victims, every seat on the House floor tonight would be empty.

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