The Hill News

In a somber opening address of the new session of the Arizona legislature, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-Ariz.) said that the Saturday shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was an assault on American democracy.

"Saturday's events were not just an attack on those individuals we loved and lost but an assault on our constitutional republic, on our democracy," Brewer said. "Arizona is in pain. Yes, our grief is profound. We are yet in the first hours of our sorrows but we have not been brought down. We will never be brought down."

Virtually the entirety of Brewer's speech was dedicated to the shooting in Tucson, which claimed the lives of six people and put Giffords in intensive care after she was shot point-blank in the head.

In the speech Brewer highlighted some of the victims of the shooting, including 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who was fatally shot, and Daniel Hernandez, who rushed to help Giffords right after she was shot. Fightin! g back tears, Brewer described how Green, just elected to her school's student council, was excited to go to the "Congress on Your Corner" event that Giffords was hosting.

"She loved baseball, she was the only girl on her Little League baseball team and she loved to wear red, white and blue," Brewer said of Green.

When Brewer asked Hernandez to rise in appreciation of his service, the entire chamber erupted in applause.

Brewer's speech lacked any kind of rhetoric that could be interpreted as partisan. Instead she repeatedly referred to the "public service" that legislators like Giffords did every day as elected officials.

"With our faith and our courage tightly in place, we will step forward from this chamber, dedicated to doing the Lord's work, continuing to do the service of the public," Brewer said.

Although the tone of Brewer's speech was mostly sad, it was also laced with hope.

"Arizona, like all ! of America, has been through difficult times before," Brewer s! aid. "Bu t those times have made us stronger, more enduring."

Giffords survived surgery, and her doctors are fairly optimistic about her recovery.