In 1996 Loretta Sanchez won election to the United States
House of Representatives—her first political office—by
toppling a polarizing, longtime incumbent. During her
20-year tenure in the House, Sanchez was an advocate for
women in the military and specialized in national security
policy, rising to become one of the most senior Democrats
on two influential committees—Armed Services and
Homeland Security. In 2003, after her sister Linda won
election to the House, the two became the first sisters to
serve in Congress.
Loretta Sanchez was born in Lynwood, California, on
January 7, 1960, the oldest daughter of Ignacio Sandoval
Sanchez and Maria Socorro Macias Sanchez.1 Her father
worked as a machinist at a plastics and rubber factory;
her mother worked as a secretary and elementary school
teacher. Loretta, the second oldest of seven children, grew
up in the family’s modest house in Anaheim.2 Her brother,
Frank, recalled that his sister “was a role model for all the
girls; she was an overachiever. In a way, she was always a
politician. She taught [her sisters] Linda and Martha that
you have to grease the wheel before you get it to move.”3
Loretta graduated from Katella High School in Anaheim
and went to college at Chapman University in Orange,
California, where she earned a BS in economics in 1982.
Two years later, Sanchez earned an MBA from American
University in Washington, DC. From 1984 to 1987, she
worked as a special projects manager at the Orange County
transportation authority. Sanchez then entered the private
sector in the investment banking industry and, later, worked
as a strategist at a leading consulting company. She married
Stephen Brixey III, a securities trader, and the couple settled
in Orange County, California. They divorced in 2004.
Sanchez married Jack Einwechter, a retired U.S. Army
colonel, in 2011.4
Sanchez had started out as a registered Republican and
fiscal conservative, but she broke with the GOP in 1992,
believing the party had marginalized immigrants and
women. Her first attempt at political office was a 1994
campaign as a Democrat for a seat on the Anaheim city
council; Sanchez finished eighth out of 16 contenders.5
In 1996 Sanchez declared her candidacy for a seat in
the U.S. House from central Orange County—including
much of Anaheim and Santa Ana; Disneyland was a major
economic engine in the region. Long considered a bulwark
of white, suburban, middle-class voters, Orange County
had been reshaped by an influx of immigrant populations in the late twentieth century. By the 1990s the Forty-sixth
District’s population was nearly 30 percent Hispanic and
15 percent Asian.6
During the Democratic primary, Sanchez touted her
business credentials, particularly her effort to secure funding
from national companies to establish programs between
local grade schools and state colleges in Orange County.7
Despite her lack of political experience, she defeated three
male contenders in the Democratic primary with a plurality
of 35 percent of the vote.
In the general election Sanchez faced 12-term incumbent
Republican Robert Kenneth Dornan, a controversial and
outspoken conservative known as “B-1 Bob”—a reference
to both the Air Force bomber of the same name built in his
district and for his pro-defense positions generally. Dornan
was a polarizing lawmaker with a national profile—he often
served as a substitute host on conservative Rush Limbaugh’s
syndicated radio show. He was widely favored against
Sanchez, and as a result did little campaigning in 1996.8
Sanchez’s platform included support for small- and
medium-sized businesses, investment in high-tech research,
and federal funding for school improvements. Sanchez
appealed to the district’s traditionally conservative voters
with a tough-on-crime agenda while also advocating a ban
on assault weapons and the elimination of the gun show
loophole. She sought to boost Hispanic voter turnout,
which increased from 14 to 20 percent of the total vote,
compared to the previous election. And she won the support
of labor unions, progressives, and Hollywood donors—out
raising Dornan by almost $70,000. In the waning days of
the campaign, President William J. (Bill) Clinton came
to the district on her behalf. On election night Sanchez
trailed by several hundred votes, but a count of absentee
ballots during the next week, put her over the top. Sanchez
prevailed with a 984-vote margin, eking out a 47-to-46
percent win.9
For more than a year, Sanchez (who some colleagues had
dubbed the “dragon slayer”) had to contend with Dornan’s
formal challenge to her election and his insults in the press
that she “ran a dirty campaign and she is unqualified.”10 In
February 1998, the House voted overwhelmingly to dismiss
Dornan’s charge that illegal votes had tipped the election
toward Sanchez.11
Sanchez faced Dornan again in the 1998 general election,
one of the most expensive races in the country. This time,
Sanchez prevailed convincingly with 56 percent of the vote. Sanchez’s clash with Dornan gave her a national platform,
and she soon became a party leader helping to draw support
from Hispanic voters, women, and young people. She was
appointed the general co-chairwoman of the Democratic
National Committee and became the honorary chair of
Democratic presidential nominee Albert Arnold Gore Jr.’s
political action committee in 2000. In Sanchez’s seven
subsequent re-elections she won comfortably, garnering 60
percent of the vote or more on all but one occasion.12
When Sanchez took her seat in the House at the
opening of the 105th Congress (1997–1999), she received
assignments on the Education and Workforce Committee
and the National Security Committee (later renamed Armed
Services). She served on Education and Workforce until
2005, but remained on Armed Services for her entire career.
Additionally, in the 109th Congress (2005–2007), she won
a seat on the newly created Homeland Security Committee,
where she remained for the duration of her time in the
House. In the 110th and 111th Congresses (2007–2011),
when Democrats held the House majority, Sanchez chaired
the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime,
and Global Counterterrorism.13
After Republicans captured the House in 2010 Sanchez
angled to become the ranking Democrat on the Armed
Services Committee. When the Democratic Caucus voted
to assign seniority in the committee she tied Adam Smith
of Washington on the first ballot but eventually lost the
ranking member spot in the second round of voting, 97
to 86.14 By her final term in office, Sanchez had risen to
the post of number two Democrat on both Homeland
Security and Armed Services. Sanchez, who was skeptical of
handing too much power to intelligence agencies tracking
suspected terrorists, voted against the USA PATRIOT Act
in the fall of 2001. And in October 2002 she voted against
the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to use
military force against Iraq (Sanchez was one of about 130
Members who opposed it).15
From her seat on the Armed Forces Committee, Sanchez
was a leading advocate for women in the military, and a
cofounder of the congressional Women in the Military
Caucus. For years she lobbied and submitted bills to repeal
the prohibition against women serving in combat roles, and
in 2015 the Defense Department opened all combat roles
to women. Sanchez also repeatedly pressed for changes to
the Uniform Code of Military Justice so that sexual assault
crimes would be handled in a manner similar as those tried in the federal courts.16 She also cosponsored a bill in 2013
with Republican Jackie Walorski of Indiana which extended
federal whistleblower protections to servicemen and women
who reported sexual assaults. The measure passed the House
and was eventually folded into a separate defense bill.17 That
same year, Sanchez authored a bill (later added to the annual
defense appropriations act), that required unit commanders
to report incidents of sexual harassment in annual
performance evaluations and increased their accountability
for incidents that occurred in their units.18
Sanchez was also a member of Democratic Blue Dog
Caucus, which sought limited and targeted spending.
She pushed for a major overhaul of the Internal Revenue
Service, and supported pay-as-you-go requirements
and other deficit reductions. She was one of roughly 60
Democrats who opposed the taxpayer funded Troubled
Asset Relief Program which bailed out the banks during the
economic meltdown in the summer of 2008.19 But Sanchez
also believed the federal government had a beneficial role to
play in everyday life, particularly in education. As a former
student in the Head Start program, Sanchez vowed to make
federally funded education programs available to low-income
children. She also authored legislation to encourage tax-free
bonds to raise money to build and renovate schools.20
With a growing immigrant population in her district,
Sanchez took a keen interest in Vietnamese-U.S. relations.
In 2000 she accompanied President Clinton on his historic
trip to Vietnam—the first by a sitting U.S. President since
Richard M. Nixon in 1969. Sanchez used the opportunity
to discuss human rights with political dissidents. That led
the Vietnamese government to deny her entry into the
country on three subsequent trips. In 2007, when she finally
obtained a visa and visited the country again, she criticized
Vietnam’s lack of transparency and sought to meet with
the wives of political prisoners.21 In the 111th Congress
(2009–2011), Sanchez introduced a measure calling on the
Vietnamese government to release imprisoned bloggers and
journalists and to respect internet rights and freedom of
speech. “The U.S,” she said on the House Floor, “must take
a stand against Vietnam’s human rights violations. We are a
beacon of freedom, of democracy, and it is our responsibility
to speak out on behalf of those who have no voice.”22 In
2011 she offered an amendment to a Homeland Security
funding bill to add money to prevent child exploitation and
trafficking, and pointed to the prevalence of these practices
in Vietnam.23
Over the course of her career, Sanchez developed what
one political almanac termed a “spirited and unconventional
style.” In 2000 she stirred controversy before the
Democratic National Convention by planning a fundraiser
at the Playboy Mansion, a decision that she reversed only
when House colleagues and the Gore presidential campaign
complained publicly.24 In early 2007, Sanchez quit the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus after a public feud with a
fellow California Democrat and chairman of the caucus,
Joe Baca. Sanchez claimed that Baca had made comments
that demeaned women, including her—a charge which he
denied—and that he had acted autocratically as chairman;
she never returned to the group.25 She was also known for
her whimsical Christmas cards, often adorned by her fluffy
cat Gretzky.26
In 2002 Sanchez helped her younger sister Linda, a labor
lawyer, campaign and win election to a U.S. House seat in
a neighboring congressional district. When the two were
sworn in at the opening of the 108th Congress in January
2003, they became the first sisters ever to serve together
in Congress.27
Sanchez considered runs for California governor in 2003
and 2009; and in 2010, the year Republicans surged back
into the majority after four years of Democratic control, she
faced the stiffest challenge of her House career. Republican
state assemblyman Van Tran—a refugee who had fled
Saigon in 1975 with his family—mounted a challenge that
drew $1 million in campaign contributions and brought
much of the district’s Vietnamese community into his camp.
Sanchez faced a backlash from many Asian-Americans
when she said in a Spanish-language Univision interview
that “the Vietnamese and the Republicans are, with an
intensity, (trying) to take this seat.” Complicating matters,
an independent candidate, Cecilia Iglesias, jumped into the
race. But Sanchez managed to right her campaign, outraised
Tran nearly two-to-one, and secured 53 percent of the vote;
Tran took 39 percent and Iglesias took 8 percent.28
In 2016 Sanchez opted to not run for an eleventh
term in the House in order to seek the U.S. Senate seat
being vacated by Barbara Boxer who had decided to retire
at the conclusion of the 114th Congress (2015–2017).
Sanchez stressed her decades of experience in Washington,
particularly her work on defense and security issues. “There
are two kinds of candidates,” she said. “Those who want to
be something and those who want to do something. I am
running for Senate because I am a doer.”29 The race pitted her against the Democratic Party establishment favorite,
California attorney general Kamala Harris. In the state’s top two
primary winner format, Sanchez placed second behind
Harris to advance to the general election.30 Throughout the
general election Harris maintained a significant advantage
in fundraising and in the polls. On Election Day, Harris
prevailed by a 62-to-38 percent margin of victory.31
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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