Ritchie Torres

I had the solemn honor of speaking at the vigil for Detective First Grade Didarul Islam, who was murdered in the line of duty during the Midtown Manhattan shooting.

In his memory, I arranged for a flag to be flown over the Capitol as a symbol of our nation’s gratitude for his service and sacrifice.

I had a wonderful time speaking to constituents at State Senator Jamaal Bailey’s annual barbecue in the Northeast Bronx. One of the highlights of the year.

Last night, I had the solemn honor of speaking at the vigil for Detective First Grade Didarul Islam, who was murdered in the line of duty during the Midtown Manhattan shooting.

In his memory, I arranged for a flag to be flown over the Capitol as a symbol of our nation’s gratitude for his service.

Public housing is not only where I was born and raised. It is who I am.

Words cannot express the deep love I feel for the NYCHA tenant leaders who fight everyday to preserve NYCHA housing, which remains the nation’s largest safety net of deeply affordable housing.

Shane Devon Tamura purchased an M4-style rifle in Nevada and transported it across state lines to New York, where he opened fire and murdered five New Yorkers in cold blood.

Why must NYC be forced to live the deadly consequences of another state’s dangerously lax gun laws?

I had the honor of convening a two-hour townhall between the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the tenant leaders of my Congressional District in the Bronx.

NYC fell victim to the worst active shooting in recent memory. We are reminded yet again that the US remains the only industrialized country confronting a never-ending nightmare of mass shootings.

Gun violence is not an inevitability. It is a policy choice that we, as a society, must stop making.

A $12 billion recovery would be golden for bondholders like GoldenTree but it would not be so golden for the people of Puerto Rico.

A $12 billion recovery would result in rate increases so high that Puerto Rico would have the highest electricity prices in the country—second only to Hawaii.

Actually Cuomo won my District by 20 points. Do your homework.

Donald Trump did not turn down an opportunity to party with Jeffrey Epstein in the presence of young women or praise Epstein’s sexual interest in women “on the younger side.” Nor did he turn down an opportunity to fly on Epstein’s jet at least seven times in four years. Nor did he turn down an opportunity to host Epstein at Mar-a-Lago, where Ghislaine Maxwell recruited Victoria Giuffree into a sex trafficking ring. Nor did he turn down an opportunity to appoint as Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who gave a sweetheart deal to Jeffrey Epstein and all his unnamed co-conspirators. Release the files.

I had a wonderful time catching up with constituents at the Forest Houses Family Day event in the South Bronx.

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” will endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, and nowhere more so than in the Bronx.

A trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid represents an existential threat to health care providers like SBH, which has been serving the Bronx for nearly 160 years.

The social media account @DiaperDiplomacy brilliantly captures the infantile absurdity of American politics.

As Oscar Wilde once put it, “life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” In the age of Trump, politics has devolved into perpetual psychodrama and performance art.

Climate change is as local as it is global.

On August 6, 2024, the Bronx was hit hard by extreme rainfall—up to 5.4 inches in 24 hours—far exceeding the rest of NYC.

A stark reminder of how hyperlocal the impacts of climate change can be.

I stood with GrowNYC and Hunger Free America to oppose Donald Trump’s proposed $300 billion cut to SNAP—the program that puts food on the table for 40 million Americans.

In the Bronx, 1 in 3 residents depends on SNAP. Food is not a privilege—it is a right. Not a luxury—but a lifeline.

The Republican Party is no longer a normal political party. It has become a cult of personality around their lord and savior: Donald Trump.

The loyalty of Republicans lies not with the working people of America but with a false god.

Ratepayers in Puerto Rico pay 26 cents per kilowatt-hour—53% more than the national average of 17 cents.

The people of Puerto Rico are paying the highest prices in America for an electric grid that continues to fail them catastrophically.

I had an inspiring meeting with Edward Tavarez, a son of the Bronx who advocates for young people too often left behind by a broken system.

He transforms struggle into service, mentoring kids at Camp Junior, advocating for youth jobs in Congress, and aspiring to be the first pilot in his family.

Randy Fine is a bloated, braindead, blithering idiot who has no business being in Congress.

I would call Fine a jester who belongs in a circus but that would be an insult to jesters who have more brain cells.

Telling Palestinians in Gaza to “starve away” is an evil thing to say.

The US must make every effort to secure the release of the hostages, end the war, enable new Palestinian self-governance in Gaza, build a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and expand the Abraham Accords.

I represent working people who, after paying their bills, are left with just $20 a day to live on.

Donald Trump wants to gut food and health care for Americans living on a few dollars a day—all to fund tax breaks for billionaires.

There is something profoundly wrong with that picture.

Like Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump has effectively taken the Fifth.

He refuses to release the Epstein files—and won’t even comment on them.

If Puerto Rico were a state, it would be the lowest-income state in the US.

The tragic story of Puerto Rico is one in which the lowest-income ratepayers are paying are among the highest electricity bills for the worst performing electric grid, resulting in a perfect storm of energy poverty.

If you refuse to condemn Hamas for the murder, maiming, mutilation, rape, torture, and abduction of thousands of Jews and Israelis on October 7, then you have no business calling yourself a humanitarian.

A humanitarianism that devalues Jewish life is no humanitarianism at all

Puerto Rico’s electric grid is failing catastrophically. It needs every dollar it can get.

The notion of robbing a failing grid of desperately needed dollars—in order to placate essentially one implacable bondholder—would represent the most profound betrayal of the people of Puerto Rico.

Speaker Mike Johnson is covering up the cover-up.

He’d rather send Congress home until September than release the Epstein files. Revealing.

Congress cannot allow a backroom bankruptcy deal that jeopardizes grid reliability and energy affordability for the people of Puerto Rico.

The existential energy needs of the 3 million American citizens in Puerto Rico matter far more than the interests of bondholders. Period.

What about the Epstein files?

The grand jury testimony is only a small subset of the Epstein files.

Dear President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi:

Release the Epstein files in your possession. You made a promise to the American people. Now keep it.

When America sneezes, the Bronx gets the flu.

The Bronx is going to be the hardest hit by the trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid and the $300 billion-dollar cut to SNAP.