About
Norma Torres
Congresswoman Norma Torres is a mom, Nani, and community servant dedicated to working families in the Inland Empire. Congresswoman Torres moved to Pomona in 1990 to raise a family and call the Inland Empire home. Congresswoman Torres believes the working families in our communities know what’s needed: safer streets, stronger schools, good jobs, and a government that actually responds. That’s why Congresswoman Torres stepped up to serve and has worked to deliver for the Inland Empire. Now, Congresswoman Torres is running to keep pushing for our communities’ priorities and making sure working families aren’t left behind. That includes defending them from the Trump Administration’s immigration abuses and attempts to gut our healthcare and educational systems.
1990 - 2008
911 Dispatcher
Norma started her career as a 911 dispatcher for the LAPD, serving the community for 17 years. She often worked the graveyard shift, sitting four floors below ground, taking calls every day from people from all walks of life, often in their most vulnerable moments. After a particularly tragic 911 call, Norma reached out to the Los Angeles City Council to improve access to emergency services. As a result, Norma led the successful fight to recruit and hire more bilingual operators and ensure that bilingual operators were on call for every work shift, as well as improved training for all dispatchers, securing a $350,000.00 grant to upgrade the computer system and founding the Community Outreach Program to teach the general public how to properly use the 911 emergency system.
2000 - 2006
City Council Member
While working at the 911 dispatch center, Norma was an active member of AFSCME, which challenged its members to become more involved and run for local office. She rose to the challenge and unseated a long-time incumbent for City Council in Pomona who had long stopped being responsive to the needs of the community. As a City Councilmember, Norma led many initiatives to improve the quality of life in Pomona and combat crime, including the Neighbors for Pomona Committee, which was dedicated to reducing crime and graffiti in the community.
2006 - 2008
Mayor of Pomona
Norma was sworn in as the first Latina Mayor of Pomona in February 2006 after winning an 11-way primary for the seat. As the Mayor of Pomona, Norma continued to fight to keep Pomona safe by imposing gang injunctions limiting gang member activities, which substantially reduced the severity of Pomona’s gang violence problem. In 2008, she was selected to serve as the Treasurer of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors.
2008 - 2012
Member of the California State Assembly
Serving as the Assemblywoman representing California’s 61st district, Norma served as the Chair of the Committee on Housing and Community Development at a time when the recession and housing crisis had left thousands of families struggling financially. In response to the crisis, she successfully led an effort to secure $2 billion in federal funds for the “Keep Your Home California” program. The Keep Your Home California Program helped nearly 100,000 families stay in their homes and kept them from becoming homeless. Norma also helped pass the Homeowner’s Bill of Rights to protect consumers from foreclosure and worked to make it easier for returning veterans to purchase homes.
2011
The Order of the Great Congress of Guatemala
Norma was born in Guatemala, but moved to the United States because of instability in the country. Norma has been an honored guest in Guatemala, where she toured the country, met with Heads of State, and received the country’s highest honor — the Order of the Great Congress of Guatemala, in the rank of Knight.
In 2011 while serving in the State Assembly, Norma was invited by the President of the Guatemalan Congress to speak before congress during their plenary session. During a ceremony the Guatemalan National Palace, Norma was also awarded with the "Cambio de la Rosa de la Paz," which honors individuals or organizations for their contributions to human rights, justice, and peace-building.
2013 - 2014
Member of the California State Senate
After winning a hard-fought special election for the California State Senate, Norma represented California’s 32nd District where she fought to create jobs in the Inland Empire at a time when families were still recovering from the recession. She advocated for job training programs, access to higher education, and other tools to improve the skills people need to get better-paying jobs. She also strongly advocated for services and programs to help families transition out of the recession, keep their homes and ensure quality education is available for our children. During her time in the Legislature, Torres also made significant contributions to successfully implementing the Affordable Care Act for California’s patients and consumers. She also took on public corruption, introducing legislation to strengthen California’s anti-bribery laws, close loopholes, and hold those involved in corruption accountable.
January 2016
Visit to Guatemala with Joe Biden
In January 2016, Norma was invited by Vice President Biden to represent Congress and join him at the swearing-in of the new President of Guatemala, Jimmy Morales. Prior to the swearing-in, Norma founded the bipartisan Congressional Central America Caucus, which focuses on the root causes of instability in Central America and in particular, the Northern Triangle countries, supporting a strategy of governance, security, and prosperity in the region. Through these efforts, Norma worked closely with the Vice President on rooting out public corruption.
2015 - Present
Member of Congress
As the Congresswoman representing California’s 35th district, Norma has been a powerful advocate for the working families of the Inland Empire. Norma is a member of the House Committee on Appropriations, one of the most influential committees in Congress, which funds the federal government. Her top priority has been fighting for funding and programs that are critical to the development of the Inland Empire. On this Committee, she has secured improvements in our communities when it comes to housing, transportation, protecting fair elections, and job creation.
She has also introduced legislation to spur investment in our infrastructure and was instrumental in achieving local control for the Ontario Airport, which has seen the airport grow by 10% in recent years. Congresswoman Torres has been dedicated to making sure working families in the Inland Empire aren’t left behind, fighting to lower our cost of living, build more housing and protect our communities from the Trump Administration’s attempts to gut our healthcare and educational systems.
While Congresswoman Torres has been actively working to pass comprehensive immigration reform while supporting the development of neighboring countries to address the root causes of immigration, she is strongly opposed to the barbaric immigration practices of the Trump Administration. Whether its family separations at our nation’s southern border, Trump’s indiscriminate mass deportation program, or his attempts to gut immigration judges or limit oversight of detention centers, Norma has been fighting tooth and nail to hold this Administration accountable for the damage it has done to families.