Meet Bob
PROVEN LEADERSHIP. DELIVERING RESULTS FOR OUR COMMUNITY.
Senator Bob J. Archuleta has dedicated his life to serving his country and his community proudly. He was elected in November 2018 to the California State Senate to represent portions of Los Angeles and Orange counties.
PROVEN LEADERSHIP. DELIVERING RESULTS FOR OUR COMMUNITY.
Senator Bob J. Archuleta has dedicated his life to serving his country and his community proudly. He was elected in November 2018 to the California State Senate to represent portions of Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Senator Archuleta is the Chair of the California Senate Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, notably the first Latino Army Veteran to serve in this capacity. He also serves on the following committees: Business, Professions and Economic Development; Governmental Organization; Insurance; and Transportation. In August 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Senator Archuleta, an Army combat veteran, to the Governor’s Military Council. He was one of only 16 state senators, in 2021, to earn a 100 percent Voter Record by the California Labor Federation and received an ‘A’ grade by the California League of Conservation for the 2020 legislative session.
Senator Archuleta was appointed by the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, to the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy at West Point. The Senator was the first American of Mexican descent to be appointed by any President as a member of the Board, where he was immediately elected its co-chair. He also served on the Los Angeles County Military Veteran Affairs Commission; the United States Army Advisory Board for Military Recruitment; the Los Angeles County Library Commission. Senator Archuleta has received Congressional Recognition Awards and Proclamations for Service, having been recognized by the Vietnam Veterans of America, Hispanic American Airborne Association, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and was named 2019 Legislator of the Year by the American G.I. Forum of California.
He grew up in the working class neighborhood of Lincoln Heights in Los Angeles, and helped his family, as a young boy, delivering newspapers, selling flowers, and doing other odd jobs in the neighborhood. He attended Salesian High School, Boyle Heights, where he earned a football scholarship, and paid tuition fees in the offseason by working at a gas station near the campus. Soon after graduating, he enlisted in the United States Army serving in the 82nd Airborne Division as a paratrooper during the Vietnam era.
Senator Archuleta went on to Rio Hondo College Police Academy, where he was president of his academy class, and later joined the Montebello Police Department as a reserve police officer. He embarked on a different path of public service when he was elected to office on the Pico Rivera City Council, where he also served as mayor. He is married to his wife, Rose, and has five children, with his two youngest sons having graduated from West Point and serving in the military.