Valdez Venita Demings (née Butler; born March 12, 1957) is an American politician and former police officer who served as U.S. representative for Florida's 10th congressional district from 2017 to 2023. The district covered most of the western half of Orlando and includes much of the area around Orlando's resort parks. It includes many of Orlando's western suburbs, including Apopka and Winter Garden. From 2007 to 2011, Demings served as the first female chief of the Orlando Police Department, closing a 27-year career in law enforcement. She has also been first lady of Orange County, Florida, since December 4, 2018, when her husband Jerry Demings was sworn in as County Mayor.
Demings won the Democratic Party's nomination for U.S. Representative from Florida's 10th congressional district in 2012. After losing to Republican incumbent Daniel Webster, she won in 2016 after the State Supreme Court mandated redistricting statewide.[1]
Valdez Venita Butler was born on March 12, 1957,[4] one of seven children born to a poor family; her father worked as a janitor, her mother as a maid. They lived in Mandarin, a neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida. She attended segregated schools in the 1960s and graduated from Wolfson High School in 1975.[5][6]
In 1983, Demings applied for a job with the Orlando Police Department (OPD); her first assignment was on patrol on Orlando's west side.[5] Demings was appointed chief of the Orlando Police Department in 2007, becoming the first woman to lead the department.[9][10] From 2007 to 2011, she oversaw a 40% decrease in violent crime.[11]
According to a 2015 article in The Atlantic, the Orlando Police Department "has a long record of excessive-force allegations, and a lack of transparency on the subject, dating back at least as far as Demings's time as chief."[12] A 2008 Orlando Weekly exposé described the Orlando Police Department as "a place where rogue cops operate with impunity, and there's nothing anybody who finds himself at the wrong end of their short fuse can do about it."[13] Demings responded with an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel, writing, "Looking for a negative story in a police department is like looking for a prayer at church", adding, "It won't take long to find one." In the same op-ed, she cast doubt on video evidence that conflicts with officers' statements in excessive force cases, writing, "a few seconds (even of video) rarely capture the entire set of circumstances."[12]
In 2009, she had her firearm, a Sig Sauer P226R, stolen from her department vehicle while parked at her home; she was issued a written censure. The firearm has not been recovered.[14]
Demings retired from her position as chief of OPD effective June 1, 2011, after serving with the OPD for 27 years.[15][16][12]
Democrats attempted to recruit Demings to run against Webster again in 2014.[19] She decided to run for mayor of Orange County, Florida, against Teresa Jacobs, instead,[20] but dropped out of the mayoral race on May 20, 2014.[21]
In 2015, Demings announced her candidacy for the 10th district seat after a court-ordered redistricting made the 10th significantly more Democratic ahead of the 2016 elections.[22] Webster concluded the new 10th was unwinnable, and ran for reelection in the nearby 11th district.
Demings won the Democratic nomination on August 30[23] and the general election in November with 65% of the vote.[24][25] She is the third Democrat to win this Orlando-based district since its creation in 1973 (it was numbered as the 5th from 1973 to 1993, the 8th from 1993 to 2013, and has been the 10th since 2013).
In June 2021, Demings announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in Florida's 2022 U.S. Senate election.[36] The incumbent U.S. Senator, Republican Marco Rubio, ran for reelection in 2022. In March 2022, PolitiFact reported that Demings falsely claimed that Rubio supported tax hikes.[37] She lost to Rubio in the November 8, 2022, general election.
Demings has said that she seeks to keep firearms out of the hands of "people who seek to do harm", saying that the gun control legislation she supports "isn’t about taking guns away from responsible, law-abiding people."[48] She supported the Gun Violence Restraining Order Act of 2017, which would have provided a lawful method of temporarily confiscating firearms from people deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. Of the act, Demings said, "We must do what we can to make sure law enforcement has the tools it needs to more effectively perform the ever more challenging job of keeping us a safe nation. The Gun Violence Restraining Order Act is a major step to doing just that."[49] After the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, Demings opposed arming teachers, calling the idea "ridiculous"[50] and saying it would "only shift the responsibility from lawmakers to others. It shifts the pain, the hurt, and the guilt to school staff who will find themselves outskilled and outgunned in active shooter situations."[49]
In June 2019 Demings released a congressional report on insulin prices, criticizing manufacturers for raising prices well beyond manufacturing costs, and said it was "inexcusable that American families are dying for the sake of corporate profit."[55]
Demings's husband, Jerry Demings, is mayor of Orange County, Florida, and the former Orange County Sheriff.[16] He served as the chief of the Orlando Police Department, the first African American to do so, from 1999 to 2002.[5][8] The two met on patrol in the OPD; they married in 1988 and have three children.[5]
^Congressional Staff (January 11, 2021). "REP. DEMINGS DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY". Demings.house.gov. Press Release. Archived from the original on January 11, 2021. Retrieved January 11, 2021.
