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Rep. Norma Torres

Representative for California’s 35th District

pronounced NOR-muh // TOR-iss

Torres is the representative for California’s 35th congressional district (view map) and is a Democrat. She has served since Jan 6, 2015. Torres is next up for reelection in 2024 and serves until Jan 3, 2025. She is 58 years old.

Photo of Rep. Norma Torres [D-CA35]

Earmarks

Torres proposed $43 million in earmarks for fiscal year 2024, including:

  • $6 million to City of Ontario for “Ontario Well-50 Ion Exchange Treatment Facility”
  • $6 million to City of Montclair for “Montclair Transcenter Facilities Enhancement Project”
  • $4 million to City of Pomona for “Pomona Emergency Operation Center and Fire Station 182”

These are earmark requests which may or may not survive the legislative process to becoming law. Most representatives from both parties requested earmarks for fiscal year 2024. Across representatives who requested earmarks, the median total amount requested for this fiscal year was $39 million.

Earmarks are federal expenditures, tax benefits, or tariff benefits requested by a legislator for a specific entity. Rather than being distributed through a formula or competitive process administered by the executive branch, earmarks may direct spending where it is most needed for the legislator's district. All earmark requests in the House of Representatives are published online for the public to review. We don’t have earmark requests for senators. The fiscal year begins on October 1 of the prior calendar year. Source: Appropriations.house.gov. Background: Earmark Disclosure Rules in the House

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2022 Report Card for Torres.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Torres is shown as a purple triangle in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the House of Representatives positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Torres has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Sep 22, 2023. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Norma Torres sits on the following committees:

Enacted Legislation

Torres was the primary sponsor of 5 bills that were enacted:

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Does 5 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Torres sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Crime and Law Enforcement (17%) International Affairs (17%) Immigration (15%) Armed Forces and National Security (12%) Native Americans (12%) Housing and Community Development (10%) Government Operations and Politics (10%) Science, Technology, Communications (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Torres recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Torres voted No

Passed 314/117 on May 31, 2023.

This bill would enact a compromise reached by House Republicans and President Biden to avert an impending fiscal crisis related to the statutory debt limit. …

Torres voted Yea

Passed 289/133 on May 25, 2023.

Torres voted Nay

Torres voted Yea

Torres voted Yea

Passed 327/85 on Dec 21, 2020.

This bill became the vehicle for passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, a major government funding bill, which also included economic stimulus provisions due …

Torres voted Yea

Torres voted Yea

Passed 261/155 on Jun 20, 2018.

H.R. 5797 allows state Medicaid programs to remove the Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion for Medicaid beneficiaries aged 21 to 64 with an opioid …

Torres voted Yea

Passed 225/192 on Feb 15, 2018.

A bill which just passed the House would update the law for disabled Americans for modern times, say Republicans. Democrats say it would set disabled …

Torres voted Yea

Passed 338/88 on May 13, 2015.

The USA Freedom Act (H.R. 2048, Pub.L. 114–23) is a U.S. law enacted on June 2, 2015 that restored in modified form several provisions of …

Torres voted Aye

Passed 261/155 on May 12, 2015.

The Regulatory Integrity Protection Act would roll back a new regulation that redefines “waters of the United States.” The regulation both expands the list of …

Missed Votes

From Jan 2015 to Sep 2023, Torres missed 81 of 4,903 roll call votes, which is 1.7%. This is on par with the median of 1.7% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: