Profile

Serving the First Congressional District of Nevada for more than a decade, Rep. Dina Titus is the dean of Nevada’s delegation. Previously she served as State Senate Minority Leader from 1993 to 2009.

Dina has been a persistent champion for average Nevadans and has been rated one of the most effective Democratic members of the House of Representatives by the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

Dina is addressing the affordable housing crisis in Southern Nevada with legislation to provide more rental housing vouchers for lower-income families. She also is pushing legislation to help homebuyers by forcing outside institutional investors to divest themselves of the thousands of homes they have bought in Southern Nevada. Dina wants those homes to be owned by people, not corporations. She has brought jobs to Southern Nevada as a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. She has introduced legislation to raise the minimum wage and she has fought to protect a woman’s right to choose.

Dina serves as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee where she brings common-sense expertise to international problems. Within the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Dina serves as ranking member of a subcommittee that helps Nevada’s communities adapt to climate change and better respond to natural disasters.

After helping the Las Vegas community recover from the deadliest shooting in modern American history, Dina has emerged as one of the leading voices in Congress for substantive action to reduce gun violence. She introduced legislation to ban bump stocks that convert rifles into machine guns.

Dina supported capping the price of insulin at $35. She has fought every Republican effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which provides health insurance to tens of thousands of Nevadans.

Dina is a strong advocate for the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform that provides a legal pathway to citizenship.

Dina has worked to preserve Nevada’s special environment through creation of two national monuments. She also has fought to protect Nevada’s environment and its people through her three-decades-long opposition to the storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. She is also a founding member of the Colorado River Caucus and a strong advocate for renewable energy.

Dina understands the importance of education because she has been an educator herself. She taught American and Nevada political science classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas from 1979 until 2011. A noted non-fiction writer, she is internationally known for her expertise in the history and policies related to nuclear power, weaponry and waste.

Dina is a proud Greek American and serves as Vice Chair of the Hellenic Caucus in Congress, representing her heritage and fostering cooperation between the United States and Greece. She has called for the reunification of Cyprus and protections for the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Dina grew up in the small town of Tifton, Georgia, with her parents, Joe and Betty Titus, and her younger sister, Dr. Rho Hudson, who is a professor of special education and a founding faculty member of Nevada State College. Dina is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, holds a master’s degree from the University of Georgia, and earned her doctorate at Florida State University.

Dina has been married to Professor Thomas C. Wright for over 40 years. Tom, a Latin American historian, received the prestigious UNLV Distinguished Professor award in 2008 and is the author of a number of award-winning books, most notably on political exile and human rights. John Wright Hall on campus is named after his father, pioneer professor at UNLV.