Sanchez, Loretta, 1960-

Loretta Lorna Sanchez (born January 7, 1960) is an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1997 to 2017. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

Born in Lynwood, California and raised in Anaheim, she graduated from Katella High School in Anaheim in 1978. Sanchez joined the United Food and Commercial Workers when she worked as an ice cream server in high school and received a union scholarship to college. She received her undergraduate degree in economics from Chapman College in Orange in 1982, obtained her MBA from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1984, and was a financial analyst for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton until entering the House. 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. 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.

In 1996 Sanchez declared her candidacy for a seat in the U.S. House from central Orange County. 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. She narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Bob Dornan by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Sanchez was 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. 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.

Sanchez chose not to run for re-election to the House in 2016, instead opting to run for the U.S. Senate race in California. She was defeated by California Attorney General, fellow Democrat, and future Vice President Kamala Harris, 61.6% to 38.4%. In September 2017, it was announced that Sanchez would be the executive producer of a new political drama show called Accidental Candidate, which appeared on NBC. Since leaving the House, she has run unsuccessfully for at least two local offices in California, the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the Rancho Santiago Community College District as a college trustee.