By The Opinion
For the primary elections that end on June 2 for the new 41st district of the federal Congress, four candidates are running: Linda Sánchez, who has served the community from the Capitol since 2003; Héctor De La Torre and Shonique Williams, all Democrats, in addition to Republican Mitch Clemmons. If none of the candidates receives more than 50% of the votes, the two most voted will face each other in the general elections in November.
The Opinion considers that Héctor De La Torre is the best candidate and calls on his readers who are residents of the district to vote for him.
The new 41st district is the result of the recent redistricting. It includes the cities of Bellflower, Downey, Lakewood, Norwalk and Whittier in Los Angeles County, as well as La Habra and Los Alamitos in Orange County. More than half of its residents are Latino; the rest of the population is made up of 28% white, 11% Asian American, and 5% African American. Regarding the electoral roll, 46% of voters are registered as Democrats, 26% as Republicans and the remaining percentage belong to other categories.
De La Torre was born in Los Angeles 59 years ago. He graduated in International Relations from Occidental College and completed graduate studies in the same discipline at George Washington University. He currently lives in Downey with his wife and three children.
The Opinion recognizes him as the leader of the citizen campaign in South Gate that achieved the removal of corrupt elected officials, being one of the only two councilors not involved in the 2002 scandal. In that city he served as councilor and mayor. He was then elected to the California Legislature, where he served for six years. In Sacramento he continued his fight against the corruption of political leaders accustomed to giving taxpayer-funded gifts. In 2008 and 2010, the Legislature passed two laws he authored, AB 1945 and AB 2470, respectively, that proposed ending the practice of retroactive health insurance cancellations. AB 2470 was signed into law by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on September 30, 2010. Now, his goal is to bring that same emphasis on public health and good government to Congress.
Later, he continued to serve the community in agencies such as the California Air Resources Board and as chairman of the Board of Governors of LA Care Health Thought, the nation’s largest publicly run health organization for low-income residents. Since August 2023, he has served as executive director of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, which represents 27 cities and 11 unincorporated areas in southeastern Los Angeles County on regional transportation, air quality, housing, economic development and public health issues.
These and other experiences have made De La Torre an expert in community management. He is a public servant in the strict sense of the term. The list of public endorsements of his candidacy exceeds this space, and includes four assembly members, two state senators, five former congressmen, seven unions and dozens of elected officials from the cities that make up the district.
De La Torre states that he decided to apply after the creation of the new district, convinced that his knowledge of cities and their local problems will allow him to contribute to improving the quality of life of the population. So be it.
