Val Demings

On May 21, 2020, Demings confirmed she was on "the shortlist" to be Joe Biden's vice presidential nominee for the 2020 presidential election, and added that she would accept the job if offered.

During Demings’s time helming the Orlando Police Department from 2007 to 2011, the police department continued a long record of excessive-force allegations and a lack of transparency dating from prior to and throughout her tenure as chief. From 2010 to 2014, the department paid out more than $3.3 million in damages in at least 47 lawsuits alleging false arrest, excessive force, and other complaints. A 2008 a Orlando Weekly expose 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.” Demings responded in a op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel, arguing that “Looking for a negative story in a police department is like looking for a prayer at church, “It won't take long to find one.” In the same op-ed she cast doubt on the veracity of witness videos as evidence when it conflicts with officers statements in excessive force cases, writing, “a few seconds (even of video) rarely capture the entire set of circumstances.” A 2016 Orlando Sentinel investigation found that in 2010, the last complete year Demings served as chief, the agency used force 20 percent more than officers in Baton Rouge, a similarly-sized city with a similar majority-minority population mix and a department about the same size.

On December 18, 2019, Demings voted for both articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Demings was selected as one of seven impeachment managers who presented the impeachment case against Trump during his trial before the United States Senate.

Demings has stated that she seeks to keep firearms out of the hands of "people who seek to do harm," saying that the gun control legislation that she supports "isn’t about taking guns away from responsible, law-abiding people." She supports the Gun Violence Restraining Order Act of 2017, which would provide 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." In the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, Demings announced her opposition to proposals to arm teachers, saying such efforts were "ridiculous" and "only shift the responsibility from lawmakers to others. It shifts the pain, the hurt, and the guilt to school staff who will find themselves out skilled and outgunned in active shooter situations."

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."

In her 2018 reelection campaign, Demings was unopposed for a second term.

Demings was sworn in on January 3, 2017. She is a member of the New Democrat Coalition and the Congressional Black Caucus.

Demings has a 100% voting score from NARAL Pro-choice America in 2017, 2018, and 2019. She has a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood Action Fund for 2020, defined as a member who always vote with Planned Parenthood Action Fund's position on legislation. She has an F rating from the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List.

In January 2018 Demings voted to renew and expand Section 702, allowing the warrantless collection of Americans emails in some situations. In April 2017 the NSA announced a suspension of certain collection activities after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court deemed it illegal. The bill provided an extension of Section 702, which was set to expire December 31, 2017 and effectively reversed the courts decision, allowing certain warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications, even if that American isn’t suspected of breaking the law. Demings voted against an amendment that would have required the government to seek a warrant based on probable cause before searching surveillance data for information about Americans, which failed on a 183-233 vote.

Demings ran again for the 10th district seat after a court-ordered redistricting made the 10th significantly more Democratic ahead of the 2016 elections. She won the Democratic Party nomination on August 30, and won the general election with 65% of the vote. She is only the third Democrat ever 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).

Democrats attempted to recruit Demings to run against Webster again in 2014. After considering her options, she decided to run for Mayor of Orange County, Florida, against Teresa Jacobs, instead. Demings dropped out of the mayoral race on May 20, 2014.

Demings was the Democratic Party nominee for the United States House of Representatives in Florida's 10th congressional district in the 2012 elections. She faced freshman Republican Daniel Webster in a district that had been made slightly more Republican than its predecessor. Demings narrowly lost, taking 48 percent of the vote to Webster's 51 percent.

She was credited with reducing violent crime rates in Orlando, with a 43.6 percent drop in violent crime from 2007 to 2011, according to FBI reports. She retired from the position effective June 1, 2011, after serving with the OPD for 27 years.

In 2010, an Orlando police officer flipped and broke the neck of 84-year-old Daniel Daley after the man became belligerent, leaving him critically injured. Witnesses and Daley's family alleged excessive force and filed a lawsuit. The police department cleared the officer as "justified" in using a "hard take down" to arrest Daley, concluding he used the technique correctly even though he and the other officer made conflicting statements. Demings said “the officer performed the technique within department guidelines” and said they would launch a broader review of department procedures. A federal jury disagreed, ruling in Daley's favor and awarding him $880,000 in damages.

On February 27th 2009, Demings' Chevy Tahoe was broken into and a duffel bag was stolen, which contained her agency-issued 9 mm Sig Sauer gun, ammunition, handcuffs and baton. Demings reported the gun stolen and notified internal affairs and her supervisor, the Mayor. In April, the internal-affairs investigation ended with Demings receiving a "written censure" as punishment for not properly securing her gun in her car. She did not contest the censure and accepted responsibility.

In 2007 Demings was appointed as chief of the Orlando Police Department, becoming the first woman to lead the department.

Her husband, Jerry Demings, is the former Orange County Sheriff and current mayor of Orange County, Florida. He served as the Chief of the OPD, the first African American to do so, from 1999 to 2002. The two met while on patrol in the OPD; they married in 1988 and have three children.

After graduating from college, Demings worked as a social worker in Jacksonville for 18 months. In 1983, she applied for a job with the Orlando Police Department (OPD), and she began with the department on patrol on Orlando's west side.

Her desire for a career in law enforcement came when Demings served in the "school patrol" at Dupont Junior High School. She attended Florida State University, graduating with a degree in criminology in 1979. She continued her education at Webster University Orlando, earning a master’s degree in public administration in 1996.

Demings received a 70% rating from the American Civil Liberties Union for the 115th Congress.

Valdez Venita Demings (née Butler; born March 12, 1957) is an American politician and retired law enforcement officer who serves as the United States Representative from Florida's 10th congressional district , serving since 2017. She served as Chief of the Orlando Police Department, the first woman to hold the position. She was the Democratic nominee in both 2012 and 2016 to represent Florida's 10th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives, the latter of which Demings won. On January 15, 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected Demings to serve as an impeachment manager in the Senate trial of President Donald J. Trump. She is being considered as a potential vice presidential nominee for Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election.

Valdez Venita Butler was born on March 12, 1957, one of seven children born to a poor family; her father worked in orange groves, while her mother was a housekeeper. They lived in Mandarin, a neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida. She attended segregated schools in the 1960s, graduating from Wolfson High School in the 1970s.