Loretta Sanchez

Loretta Sanchez (born January 7 1960), an American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1997. She currently represents the 47th Congressional District of California (map) in central Orange County.

Background

Sanchez was born in Lynwood, California and graduated from Katella High School in Anaheim in 1978. She received her undergraduate degree from Chapman University in Orange in 1982, obtained her MBA from American University in Washington, DC in 1984, and was a financial analyst until entering the House.

Entry into politics

in 1994 she unsuccessfully ran for the Anaheim City Council under her then married name, Loretta Brixey. At the time, she was a registered Republican. After forays into politics as a liberal Republican, she changed parties, recast herself as a moderate Democrat, and dropped her married name in favor of her maiden name Sanchez. Her first election to the House, in what was then the 46th District in 1996, was bitterly fought. The controversial longtime Republican incumbent, Bob Dornan, was targeted as out of touch with his constituency, especially after a distracting run for the 1996 Republican Presidential nomination. The 46th had always had a Democratic tilt, but became even more Democratic after the 1990 census when it received a considerably larger number of Hispanics than had previously been in the district. She won by only 984 votes on the strength of support from Hispanics and blue-collar workers. She became the first Latina to represent an Orange County-based district. Dornan contested the election, alleging that many votes in the election were cast by people who were not U.S. citizens. Although a Congressional investigation found evidence that 624 votes were cast by non-citizens in the election, the outcome was upheld [1]. According to a right-wing journal, an investigation into the election by the INS revealed that up to 4,023 ineligible voters had voted in the election [2]. In a 1998 rematch, Sanchez handily defeated Dornan and has not faced serious opposition since. Her district was renumbered the 47th District after the 2000 census.

In November 2002, Loretta's younger sister, Linda, was elected for the new 39th District. They are the first pair of sisters to serve simultaneously in the United States Congress.

2003 Recall Election

During the California’s Gubernatorial recall campaign, Sanchez was one of the first Democrats to break from Governor Gray Davis and state that a Democrat should run to succeed Davis in case the recall measure passed. Though she recommended that the Democratic candidate be California’s Senior Senator Dianne Feinstein, Sanchez stated that if no other serious Democratic contender stepped forward, she would be willing to run herself. Many California Democrats ultimately adopted Sanchez’s position, paving the way for Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante to enter the race.

Preceded by Bob Dornan	United States Representative for the 46th Congressional District of California 1997–2003	Succeeded by Dana Rohrabacher
Preceded by Chris Cox	United States Representative for the 47th Congressional District of California 2003–present	Succeeded by incumbent

External links