SPRINGFIELD – Wednesday, Democrat State Rep. Stephanie Kifowit personally and publicly issued an explanation of her comments on the State House floor Tuesday, in which she wished death upon State Rep. Peter Breen's family.
Despite calls for her resignation, censuring and/or dissent, Kifowit responded with a "sincere apology" after saying Tuesday evening that her words had been misconstrued.
Kifowit wrote on her Facebook page:
I offer my sincere apology to Representative Peter Breen, his family, and all of my House colleagues for my poor choice of words during a serious discussion on our Veterans’ health and safety. I would never wish any harm or mortality on anyone’s family, including the Breen family. As a Marine Corps Veteran, I feel very passionate about what happened in our Quincy Veterans home, which resulted in 13 Veteran and 1 spouse deaths in addition to over 70 individuals being ill. The truth is this did happen to our heroes, and my attempt to illustrate empathy for the families that were affected by the loss of their loved ones was not conveyed properly.
Lost in my comments yesterday was our obligation to work together on behalf of our Veterans to ensure that the situation in Quincy never happens again. As legislators, we are fallible people, but we are tasked with the tremendous responsibility of caring for the Veteran men and women who have never let us down. We owe them so much more.
I look forward to working with my colleagues to expand access to health care and mental health resources for our Veterans
She requested her comments be stricken from the official House transcript and the member agreed unanimously.
Representative Breen responded to the situation in strong comments gathered on a video by Edgar County Watchdogs:
