Arthur A. Torres (born September 24, 1946) is an American former politician who served as a member of the
California State Legislature
The California State Legislature is a bicameral state legislature consisting of a lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members; and an upper house, the California State Senate, with 40 members. Both houses of the Legisla ...
. He is the vice chair of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the governing Board of the
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) was created in 2004 after 59% of California voters approved California Proposition 71: the Research and Cures Initiative, which allocated $3 billion to fund stem cell research in California ...
(CIRM). CIRM, established in 2005 following the passage of Proposition 71, is charged with allocating US$3 billion to
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
universities and research institutions to support and advance stem cell research. He is a
colon cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel mo ...
survivor and serves on the Board as a patient advocate.
He is also a member of the
Board of Regents of the University of California.
Torres served as the Chairman of the California Democratic Party from 1996 to 2009.
He was the first
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
in the California Democratic Party to have been nominated for statewide office when he won the Democratic primary for
insurance commissioner
An insurance commissioner (or commissioner of insurance) is a public official in the executive branch of a state or territory in the United States who, along with his or her office, regulate the insurance industry. The powers granted to the office ...
in
1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...
. He is openly gay. He is the father of a son and daughter.
Early life and education
Torres graduated from
Montebello High School
Founded in 1909, Montebello High School is a public high school which is part of the Montebello Unified School District, and has an enrollment of approximately 2,600 students in grades 9-12. Its campus is located in Montebello, California, a subur ...
in 1964. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...
and a
Juris Doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
from
UC Davis School of Law
The University of California, Davis School of Law (Martin Luther King Jr. Hall), referred to as UC Davis School of Law and commonly known as King Hall, is the professional graduate law school of the University of California, Davis. The school rec ...
. He was a John F. Kennedy teaching fellow at the
Harvard Kennedy School
The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...
.
Career
In 1972, Torres was defeated in his first election for a seat in the
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature, the upper house being the California State Senate. The Assembly convenes, along with the State Senate, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento.
The A ...
by 615 votes. Soon after the election, he became the national legislative director for the
United Farm Workers
The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing ...
,
AFL-CIO, at 25 years of age.
Two years later, Torres won a seat in the California State Assembly, where he served for the next eight years. In 1982, he was elected to the
State Senate, unseating incumbent
Alex P. Garcia after an extremely bitter Democratic primary.
Torres served in the State Senate for another twelve years, from 1982 to 1994. He served as chairman of the Insurance Committee, Assembly Health Committee, Senate Joint Committee on Science and Technology, the Joint Committee on Refugees, the Senate Committee on the Entertainment Industry, and he was the founding chairman of the Senate Toxics Committee. Torres co-authored legislation that created the
Museum of Tolerance
The Museum of Tolerance-Beit HaShoah (MOT, House of the Holocaust), a multimedia museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, is designed to examine racism and prejudice around the world with a strong focus on the history of the Holocaust. Th ...
in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, and the
California Clean Water Act.
The first "Restroom Equity" Act in the United States was passed in California in 1989, introduced by Torres after several long waits for his wife to return from the bathroom.
In 1994, Torres was nominated for insurance commissioner, making him the first Latino Democrat nominated for a statewide office in California history. Torres would eventually be defeated by
Republican Assemblyman
Chuck Quackenbush
Charles Quackenbush (born April 20, 1954) is an American former politician and Florida law enforcement officer. A Republican, he served as Insurance Commissioner of California from 1995–2000 and as a California State Assemblyman representing ...
.
Torres found himself in the midst of controversy when on January 14, 1995, speaking at the
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...
to a group composed mainly of Latinos, Torres said that
Proposition 187
California Proposition 187 (also known as the ''Save Our State'' (SOS) initiative) was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public ed ...
, passed by voters months prior, was "the last gasp of white America in California."
Torres served as a German Marshall Fund Fellow and delivered a paper on Western European immigration issues. He was appointed by the United States Senate, by the late US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, to the Commission on International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development, which presented its recommendations on immigration reform to then President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
Torres served as president of the Kaitz Foundation, dedicated to bringing more people of color into management within the cable television industry through the Kaitz Fellowship program. The foundation provided grants to minority oriented motion picture and cable television associations. The Kaitz Board was composed of a majority of the top CEOs in the cable television industry.
Senator Torres is a member of the Board of "One Legacy," an organ transplant foundation in Los Angeles, and the
Latino Community Foundation, serving the Bay Area and headquartered in San Francisco. He has served on the board of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the San Francisco Ballet, “Heal the Bay” in Santa Monica, and the advisory board of ''The Princeton Review''.
In 2017, San Francisco Mayor
Ed Lee
Edwin Mah Lee (Chinese: 李孟賢; May 5, 1952 – December 12, 2017) was an American politician and attorney who served as the 43rd Mayor of San Francisco from 2011 until his death. He was the first Asian American to hold the office.
Born in ...
appointed Torres to the
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA or San Francisco MTA) is an agency created by consolidation of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT), and the Taxicab Commission. The agen ...
Board of Directors. He was confirmed unanimously by the
Board of Supervisors
A board of supervisors is a governmental body that oversees the operation of county government in the U.S. states of Arizona, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Virginia, and Wisconsin, as well as 16 counties in New York. There are equivalent agenc ...
.
Personal life
Torres was formerly married to Yolonda Nava, a television newscaster and talk show hostess.
In March 2006, Torres had surgery to remove
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
from his colon. The operation was successful, but it prevented him from chairing the 2006 California State Democratic Convention in late-April. Former
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...
Willie Lewis Brown Jr.
Willie Lewis Brown Jr. (born March 20, 1934) is a retired American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004, the first African American to hold that office.
Born in Mineola, Texas, wher ...
and first Vice-chair Alexandra Gallardo-Rooker substituted for Torres as convention chair.
Torres
came out as a gay man in 2009, thanking his longtime partner Gonzalo Escudero at a farewell speech to the California Democratic Party.
See also
*
Torristas and Molinistas
Torristas and Molinistas is a term used to describe a political feud in Los Angeles, California, in the last part of the 20th century. The term was akin to the Characters in Romeo and Juliet, Montagues and Capulets or the Hatfields and McCoys, a ...
References
External links
*
Join California Art Torres
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torres, Art
1946 births
California Democratic Party chairs
Democratic Party California state senators
LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people
Gay politicians
LGBT state legislators in California
Hispanic and Latino American state legislators in California
Living people
Democratic Party members of the California State Assembly
UC Davis School of Law alumni
University of California, Santa Cruz alumni
People from Montebello, California
Politicians from Los Angeles
20th-century American politicians
21st-century LGBT people