Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York is now not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) after months of tensions with colleagues over the Israel-Hamas warfare.
Torres has lengthy been among the many most vocal defenders of Israel amongst progressives. However for the reason that October 7 Hamas assaults, the New York Democrat had taken to publicly and steadily denouncing some progressive colleagues’ views and statements on the battle, which privately aggravated different lawmakers within the practically 100-member cohort.
That culminated in his vote to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan in November over her rhetoric on Israel, together with her use of the phrase “from the river to the ocean.” Three different CPC members additionally voted to censure Tlaib, and one in every of them — Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida — left the caucus later that month.
I voted for the censure decision.
Calling for the top of Israel as a Jewish State, by the insidious phrase “from the river to the ocean,” crosses a line of hate speech that no public official ought to ever cross.
Congress has a proper to take a principled stand in opposition to… https://t.co/xuMZTw7wSw
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) November 8, 2023
“This can be a very laborious time,” Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the CPC chairwoman, informed Enterprise Insider days after that vote. “I’ve talked to a few the members [who voted to censure], we simply proceed to attempt to do what we will do.”
In early December, Torres indicated that regardless of his tensions with different CPC members, he wasn’t planning to go away the caucus.
“I’ll advocate for my viewpoint forcefully and fearlessly, and I anticipate others to do the identical,” Torres informed Enterprise Insider on the time. “I do not worry debate or viewpoint variety.”
It is also unclear whether or not Torres left the caucus voluntarily, with one senior progressive caucus member telling Enterprise Insider that the New York Democrat “by no means confirmed up” for conferences.
“I do not know that I’ve ever seen him present as much as something,” the lawmaker stated. “If he was out of compliance, he might have been pressured to go away.”
Torres’s departure seems to be deliberately low-profile. A spokesperson for the caucus didn’t reply to a request for remark, whereas Torres’s workplace declined to remark. One fellow progressive member informed Enterprise Insider that he solely came upon about it through social media.
It is also not the primary time Torres has left a progressive caucus.
In December 2017, as a New York Metropolis councilman, Torres publicly resigned from the council’s progressive caucus amid disagreements over his sponsorship of a police reform invoice, saying he did not wish to be a member of a “caucus that may support and abet the general public humiliation of one in every of its colleagues.”
He later rejoined that caucus in August 2018, citing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s shock victory over Rep. Joe Crowley in a congressional main weeks earlier.
