EPISODE 5
Rep. Ritchie Torres is a fighter dedicated to the Bronx, a community he calls home
In this episode . . .
Ritchie Torres, a U.S. Congressman representing the Bronx, is recognized for his journey from poverty and personal challenges to political achievement. Seen by many as a practical and outspoken leader, his career has been marked by changes in his public positions on various topics, earning him both praise and criticism.
“If you are speaking to the far left, then you could be forgiven for thinking that ‘Defund the Police’ is a popular movement in America, but if you’re speaking to working-class people of color, then you would realize that it was never a mass constituency for a movement like ‘Defund the Police.’ And so we should be taking positions that are in line with the majority of Americans.”
— “NY Democrat: Trump ‘has no greater friend than the far left’” by Hanna Trudo, The Hill, 11/07/24
Bio
Rep. Ritchie Torres made history in 2020 as the first openly LGBTQ Black-Latino Member ever elected to Congress — and he is also the first openly LGBTQ Member of Congress elected from New York City. Torres has spent his entire life working for the community he calls home. Like many people in the South Bronx, poverty and struggle have never been abstractions to Ritchie, and he governs from a place of lived experience.
Torres’ mother single-handedly raised him, his twin brother, and his sister in a public-housing project. She paid the bills working minimum-wage jobs, which in the 1990s paid $4.25 an hour. While Torres grew up with mold, lead, leaks, and no reliable heat or hot water in the winter, he watched the government spend over $100 million dollars to build a golf course across the street for Donald Trump. In 2013, at the age of 25, Ritchie became New York City’s youngest elected official and the first openly LGBTQ person elected to office in the Bronx.
On the City Council, Torres stood out for his passion and work ethic. During his seven-year tenure, he tenaciously tackled problems big and small for the Bronx and for New York City. He passed over forty pieces of legislation, including legislation protecting the City’s affordable housing stock and tackling the city’s opioid epidemic. As the Chairman overseeing New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), he held the first committee hearing ever in public housing – which led to a $3 billion-dollar FEMA investment, the largest in NYC history. As Chair of the Council’s Oversight & Investigations Committee, Torres led investigations into the heating outages and lead poisoning at NYCHA, the Taxi Medallion scandal, the City’s controversial Third-Party Transfer program, and Kushner Companies.
Torres represents the South Bronx – the same community where he grew up and his mother still lives. He is a Member of the Committee on Financial Services and the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
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