Derek Tran

Derek Truyen Tran (born December 22, 1980) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the U.S. representative from since 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, Tran is the third Vietnamese American to be elected to Congress and the first to represent California.

Background

Tran was born in Los Angeles County, California, on December 22, 1980, Tran grew up in the San Gabriel Valley as the son of Vietnamese refugees. His father fled Vietnam after the 1975 Fall of Saigon as a boat person. Their boat capsized, killing his first wife and children. Later, his father returned to Vietnam where he would meet Tran's mother, after which they immigrated to the United States together.

When he turned 18, Tran enlisted in the United States Army. He spent eight years serving. Afterward, Tran attended Bentley University, graduating with a B.S., and a J.D. from Glendale University College of Law. In 2012, he moved to Orange County, California.

Career

Tran has worked as an attorney since 2014; he started his own law firm called Tran Firm in Huntington Beach in 2020. The firm's website said it focused on personal injury and employment law. In 2023, Feher Law, a practice in Torrance, acquired Tran's firm.

Tran has served on the board of the Consumer Attorneys Association of America. He has also served as a traffic commissioner for Orange. With his wife, he co-owns a pharmacy in Anaheim.

During the 2024 House election, Tran was under fire for previously supporting legal clients who had employment terminated due to workplace incidents such as sexual harassment, sexual assault, and hanging a noose.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2024

At the end of 2023, Tran announced that he would enter the 2024 all-party "top two" primary in California's 45th congressional district. In March, Republican incumbent Michelle Steel finished first; Tran got the second spot in the general election by finishing ahead of Kim Nguyen-Penaloza by 366 votes.

Steel was running for a third term. The district is considered a "battleground district". Tran's campaign emphasized the centrality of his Vietnamese American identity to his bid, as the district encompasses parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties and is a majority-minority district, including the cities of Westminster and Garden Grove, which have predominantly Vietnamese American communities, as well as Artesia and Cerritos, where Asian Americans as a whole are the largest demographic. KABC, the Los Angeles ABC affiliate, reported that the district was 39% Asian.

Both Steel and Tran vied for support from the district's Vietnamese community, with Steel claiming she understood and worked with the Vietnamese community in the district much better than Tran, provoking Tran to respond that the claim was "insulting and disgraceful." In August 2024, the ''New York Post'' called out Tran for bringing a translator with him to interviews and events, questioning whether he was actually fluent in Vietnamese. Steel's campaign additionally used Tran's false claims of proficiency as a point of criticism. At the end of August, Tran admitted to the ''Los Angeles Times'' that he had lost his childhood fluency and has since spoken "broken Vietnamese." Tran's campaign provided a series of video clips in which Tran occasionally spoke Vietnamese on television.

The candidates exchanged accusations of communist sympathies. Tran accused Steel's husband, Shawn, of accepting bribes from the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for information, stating that Steel thus could not be trusted with political office in the United States. He also drew distinctions between his own family background to that of Steel's, stating that Steel immigrated to the United States for "economic gain" while his family were refugees fleeing communism. Later, on October 22, 2024, the ''Los Angeles Times'' reported that Steel's campaign was sending out campaign mailers associating Tran with Mao Zedong and accusing him of supporting socialism. Following Tran's disclosure in August that he held cryptocurrencies, Steel also claimed that his cryptocurrency assets were bound up in China. Steel defended her accusation asserting it was provoked by Tran's earlier messaging. The mutual accusations caused several Asian American nonprofits to pen a letter to both parties stating that such rhetoric should not be used in the race.

In October, Hakeem Jeffries stumped for Tran at a party event in Anaheim, stating that the race would be close. Later in the month, Bill Clinton appeared in Orange County to stump for Tran as well as Dave Min, a state senator in a similarly tight race.

Tran defeated Steel in the general election by just 653 votes out of nearly 316,000 cast, and the race was one of the closest of the election cycle. Major news outlets only called the race 22 days after Election Night.

Tenure

Tran was sworn into the 119th United States Congress on January 3, 2025.

Committee assignments

For the 119th Congress:
* Committee on Armed Services
** Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations
** Subcommittee on Readiness
* Committee on Small Business
** Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure
** Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations (Ranking Member)

Political positions

During his 2024 campaign, Tran expressed support for 2024 California Proposition 36, entitled "Allows Felony Charges and Increases Sentences for Certain Drug and Theft Crimes", which was passed by a landslide in the 2024 general election. He also expressed support for protecting Medicare and Social Security, and for increasing federal funding for affordable housing initiatives.

Tran considers abortion to be a "number one issue" in his district. He supports nationwide legislation that provides access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments as well as reproductive rights writ large, he also stated he would vote for abortion rights at the federal level and that he supports Planned Parenthood.

Tran has criticized the Republican Party's stance on immigration, stating that mass deportations are inhumane. He has shared his own ideas for immigration reform that emphasizes technology and officer training, modernizing asylum procedures, and "a fair path to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants who are already contributing to our economy and society." He also stated that he would reintroduce the bipartisan border security bill that previously did not pass.

When asked about Joe Biden's proposed reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court, Tran specifically advocated for justices to put all of their relevant assets into blind trusts, to be forbidden from accepting gifts, and to be especially scrutinized for potentially "partisan actions they or their family members may be engaged in." Ahead of the March primary in 2024, he stated that Clarence Thomas's behavior around gifts was unacceptable. However, Tran does not support an expansion of the courts.

Personal life

Tran lives in Orange with his wife, Michelle, and their three children. Tran is a Buddhist.

Electoral history

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tran, Derek
1980 births
Living people
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century California politicians
21st-century members of the United States House of Representatives
American Buddhists
American military personnel of Asian descent
American politicians of Vietnamese descent
Bentley University alumni
Buddhist members of the United States House of Representatives
California politicians of Vietnamese descent
Candidates in the 2024 United States House of Representatives elections
Glendale University College of Law alumni
Lawyers from Orange County, California
Members of the United States House of Representatives of Asian descent
Military personnel from California
People from Orange, California
Politicians from Orange County, California
United States Army soldiers