LIVE VIDEO: Senate hearing for Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel

Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, grievously wounded in a 2011 mass shooting, made an emotional plea on Wednesday for Congress to take action to curb gun violence in the aftermath of last month’s Connecticut school massacre, urging lawmakers to “be bold, be courageous.”

Wearing a red jacket and speaking haltingly, Giffords opened testimony at the first congressional hearing on gun violence since the December 14 incident in which a gunman shot dead 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Responding to outrage across the country following that massacre, President Barack Obama and other Democrats have asked Congress to pass the largest package of gun restrictions in decades.

“This is an important conversation for our children, for our communities, for Democrats and Republicans,” Giffords, who survived a head wound in an assassination attempt last year in Tucson, Arizona, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Six people were killed and 13 wounded in the incident.

READ ON: Giffords makes emotional plea as lawmakers confront gun violence

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said on Tuesday he planned to resign, marking the latest departure from President Barack Obama’s Cabinet.

“I have let President Obama know that I will not serve a second term as secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation,” LaHood said in a statement.

LaHood, a Republican and former Illinois congressman, brought a bipartisan element to the Democratic president’s team. LaHood said he would stay on until his successor is confirmed by the Senate.

Obama has been under pressure to bring more women and minorities into his Cabinet.

READ ON: Transportation chief Ray LaHood to step down

Mitt Romney won the Republican presidential nomination as a “turnaround man,” whose capacity to reinvent companies, and the 2002 Olympics, could be transferred to the nation and its troubled economy.

But from the outset of his general election campaign-burdened with the lowest favorability rating of any major party candidate since 1984 - it was evident that his most challenging reinvention would have to be Mitt Romney.

And Tuesday night it failed. Willard Mitt Romney came up short, losing his second and likely last campaign for the presidency to President Barack Obama.

“Almost president” is a distinction sought by no politician.

READ ON: Romney’s last, greatest ‘turnaround’ falls short

Supporters look on as they watch results on a large screen as a major news network projected Ohio for President Barack Obama at the U.S. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney election night rally in Boston, Massachusetts November 6, 2012. [REUTERS/Mike Segar]

LIVE COVERAGE: The 2012 U.S. Presidential Election