Ritchie Torres

Reproductive Justice

Access to a safe and legal abortion is vital health care, and Ritchie remains committed to fighting for reproductive justice and the right to choose as essential elements of gender equality. Forty-three percent of adults in NY-15 rely on Medicaid for health insurance, meaning that they are ineligible for abortion coverage due to federal law. This is why we must repeal the Hyde Amendment, which disproportionately harms Black and Brown women and transgender and non-binary individuals.

Reimagine & Reform Criminal Justice

Ritchie believes that it is vital that we reimagine our criminal justice system, and he has consistently advocated for greater oversight mechanisms of law enforcement because the NYPD cannot be trusted to police itself. In Congress, Ritchie will fight for community-based alternatives to policing, like Cure Violence. He also believes that the answer to our gun violence epidemic is to reduce the number of guns and to reduce access to the guns available.

Desegregate Schools & Cancel Student Loan Debt

Ritchie believes in fixing our education system to make it more equitable and cancelling student debt. Across the country – and especially in the South Bronx – schools are still segregated by race and income, denying a generation of kids of color a fighting chance at a decent life. Ritchie supports holding school districts accountable for their failures to provide a quality education to all students and for their lack of effort to improve. He also supports alleviating the $1.7 billion student debt burden held by millions of Americans.

Support the Green New Deal

The Green New Deal is not only an agenda for environmental justice, but it is also one for economic justice and racial justice. Severe pollution is lethal in communities like the Bronx, where 20% of children have asthma -- 12% higher than the national average. We have to radically restructure the American economy and society around renewable energy. Black and Brown communities are on the frontlines of the environmental crisis, and they must be prioritized in our agenda to fight climate change.

Health care is a Human Right

Health care is a right, yet tens of millions of Americans struggle to pay their health bills and are crushed by medical debt. Ritchie supports Medicare for All and he believes it’s a moral imperative that we address the failings of our health care system. Ritchie is committed to increased funding for our safety-net hospitals and facilities,like NYC’s Health + Hospitals, which serve Medicaid beneficiaries, undocumented individuals, and the uninsured. This is a life-or-death matter for districts like NY-15, where 43% of adults are covered by Medicaid and many of our neighbors are undocumented and uninsured.

As a product of public housing, Ritchie stands as living proof that investment in affordable housing can bring stability and opportunity. Yet, the Republican Party, from Nixon to Reagan to Trump, systematically starved public housing of federal funding for decades. Today, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which is home to a half-million predominantly Black and Brown New Yorkers, is in dire need of approximately $40 billion in necessary capital repairs. In addition to supporting these investments, Ritchie believes we must end the criminalization of homelessness and eradicate the stigma that’s too often attached to housing insecurity.

I grew up in public housing in conditions of mold and mildew, leaks and lead, without consistent heat or hot water in the winter. And so when I think about all the struggles affecting the poorest parts of our country, whether it be poverty or inequality, food insecurity or housing, these are not only abstractions that I studied intensely as a policy, these are struggles that I’ve lived in my own life. For me, policy is personal.

Federal housing policy disproportionately benefits homeowners and higher-income Americans. Ritchie supports investing more in federal rental assistance programs, such as the Section 8 program, and capping rent at 30% of a renter’s income. Section 8 housing vouchers are a vitally important lifeline to more than 2 million American families. Ritchie believes in assisting more families by protecting and expanding Section 8. States and localities must be required to implement desegregation plans, and landlords should be banned from discriminating against renters with federal assistance.

I would not be here were it not for the stability that affordable housing gave me and my family. I owe it to my neighbors. I owe it to my fellow tenants in the Bronx to ensure that the affordable housing stock endures for the next generation of Americans.

The answer to the housing affordability crisis is not only greater rental assistance, we also need to greatly increase our investments to build new affordable and public housing. Restrictive zoning requirements and regulations at the state and local levels perpetuate segregated communities and inhibit development of affordable housing. Ritchie believes the federal government should require state and local governments to eliminate these barriers and encourage the development of the affordable housing stock.

Elevate Living Conditions

Ritchie has spent his career fighting for more funding for renovating public housing. Low-income families living in older and substandard housing too often face unsafe and unhealthy living conditions, such as lead contamination and mold exposure. Lead poisoning is particularly harmful to children under 6 years of age, whose development and health outcomes can be severely affected by exposure. In New York City, it would cost $3 billion to eradicate lead poisoning from NYCHA, and Ritchie believes that the federal government cannot ignore this health crisis, which disproportionately affects Black and Brown families.

Immigration Reform

After years of Donald Trump’s racist and xenophobic immigration policy, Ritchie is ready to fight for an agenda that lifts up the millions of immigrants who come to our country seeking a better life and to build up our nation. Not only do we need a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented individuals, but Ritchie also believes we must make our health care, educational, and vocational programs more inclusive because too often these programs discriminate based on immigration status.

Ritchie is committed to supporting LGBTQ+ individuals from their youth through aging. At the City Council, Ritchie fought for more resources for LGBTQ+ homeless youth and secured funding for the first LGBTQ+ senior center in the Bronx. However, the work is nowhere near complete, and Ritchie plans to continue this fight in Congress, including protecting the hard-fought wins that have secured basic rights for LGBTQ+ individuals and investing more in mental health care.

I want to see to it that LGBTQ communities of color get their fair share of resources from the federal government, that we create housing and provide services that specifically are tailored toward the needs of LGBTQ elders and LGBTQ youth. A wise person once said that if you don’t have a seat at the table, then you’re probably going to be on the menu. And when you have LGBTQ people of color in the room where decisions are made, then communities like mine have a fighting chance of securing its fair share of federal budget.

WASHINGTON BLADE, “RITCHIE TORRES, SET TO FIRST OUT AFRO-LATINO IN CONGRESS, SEEKS BIG CHANGES AMID COVID"

Pass the Equality Act

Ritchie looks forward to co-sponsoring and voting for the Equality Act, which would ban various forms of discrimination that LGBTQ+ Americans still face today. At a time when the federal judiciary appears increasingly hostile to LGBTQ+ rights and protections, it is more important than ever to enshrine protections for LGBTQ+ Americans in the Civil Rights Act, which is exactly what the Equality Act would do.

I feel like as a public servant, a public figure, I have an obligation to break the silence and the stigma and the shame that too often surrounds mental illness. It has been a form of coming out. I think my own acknowledgment of struggling with depression flows naturally from the experience of coming out. The process of coming out, the integrity that it demands from you, has taught me how to be more open and honest about my struggle with depression. It teaches you an ethic of radical authenticity.

Democrats must reverse the damaging administrative rules that Trump used to attack LGBTQ+ Americans. From inviting discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals in housing and health care to outright banning transgender troops from serving in our military, LGBTQ+ Americans faced consistent assault from the Trump administration, and the Biden administration and Congress must roll back his discriminatory actions.

Access to Mental Health Care

Ritchie will fight for greater support for mental health care for LGBTQ+ Americans. Ritchie regularly shares his own battle with mental health issues because he believes he has an obligation to break the silence, the stigma, and the shame that too often surrounds mental illness. It is vital that policymakers better understand the barriers to adequate mental health care for LGBTQ+ individuals, who suffer from higher rates of mental illness.