Campaign

Parents who lost boys in Sandy Hook shooting weighing run for Congress

by Rebecca Savransky - 04/10/18 5:23 PM ET

Two parents who lost children in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are considering running for Congress.

Mark Barden and Nicole Hockley are reportedly both looking into a bid for the seat held by Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.), who announced earlier this month she wouldn’t run for reelection, the Stamford Advocate reported.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has lobbied the two, who are both co-founders and managing directors of the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise, a group that aims to prevent gun violence.

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Both of them lost their sons, who were in first grade, in the 2012 school shooting.

“We already live very public lives but to be a public official is very different,” Hockley said Tuesday after she met with representatives from the DCCC. “That is why we are continuing to have these conversations with DCCC.”

Hockley said that only one of the two would run for the seat.

“Mark and I are still best friends,” Hockley said. “One of us would support the other.”

Esty announced earlier this month she would not seek reelection after a report that she was slow to act after she learned of allegations that her former chief of staff assaulted and harassed another staffer.

She announced the decision as a number of prominent Democrats, as well as the state’s largest newspaper, called for her to step down.

The Stamford Advocate reported that Barden and Hockley would likely decide within the next two weeks if one of them was going to make a run for Congress.

The possible bid comes as gun control has become a central issue in the country since a gunman in February opened fire at a high school in Parkland, Fla., killing 17 people. It was the deadliest school shooting since the one at Sandy Hook.