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- Ritchie Torres left the Congressional Progressive Caucus — the 2nd member to do so in recent months.
- It comes as he's been at odds with fellow progressives over the Israel-Hamas war.
- Torres said in December he planned to remain in the caucus: "I don't fear debate."
Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York is no longer a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) after months of tensions with colleagues over the Israel-Hamas war.
Torres has long been among the most vocal defenders of Israel among progressives. But since the October 7 Hamas attacks, the New York Democrat had taken to publicly and frequently denouncing some progressive colleagues' views and statements on the conflict, which privately aggravated other lawmakers in the nearly 100-member cohort.
That culminated in his vote to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan in November over her rhetoric on Israel, including her use of the phrase "from the river to the sea." Three other CPC members also voted to censure Tlaib, and one of them — Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida — left the caucus later that month.
I voted for the censure resolution.
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) November 8, 2023
Calling for the end of Israel as a Jewish State, through the insidious phrase “from the river to the sea,” crosses a line of hate speech that no public official should ever cross.
Congress has a right to take a principled stand against… https://t.co/xuMZTw7wSw
"This is a very hard time," Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the CPC chairwoman, told Business Insider days after that vote. "I have talked to a couple of the members [who voted to censure], we just continue to try and do what we can do."
In early December, Torres indicated that despite his tensions with other CPC members, he wasn't planning to leave the caucus.
"I will advocate for my viewpoint forcefully and fearlessly, and I expect others to do the same," Torres told Business Insider at the time. "I don't fear debate or viewpoint diversity."
It's also unclear whether Torres left the caucus voluntarily, with one senior progressive caucus member telling Business Insider that the New York Democrat "never showed up" for meetings.
"I don't know that I've ever seen him show up to anything," the lawmaker said. "If he was out of compliance, he could have been forced to leave."
Torres's departure appears to be intentionally low-profile. A spokesperson for the caucus did not respond to a request for comment, while Torres's office declined to comment. One fellow progressive member told Business Insider that he only found out about it via social media.
It's also not the first time Torres has left a progressive caucus.
In December 2017, as a New York City councilman, Torres publicly resigned from the council's progressive caucus amid disagreements over his sponsorship of a police reform bill, saying he didn't want to be a member of a "caucus that would aid and abet the public humiliation of one of its colleagues."
He later rejoined that caucus in August 2018, citing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's surprise victory over Rep. Joe Crowley in a congressional primary weeks earlier.