Indian-American State Senator Suhas Subramanyam running for US House of Representatives to take on the dysfunctional Congress

PTI

Washington, February 21

An Indian-American Senator Suhas Subramanyam, in the US state of Virginia, is running for the US House of Representatives to take on a dysfunctional Congress and extremism.

Subramanyam, 37, the first Indian-American, South-Asian, and Hindu to ever be elected to the Virginia General Assembly in 2019 and to the Virginia State Senate in 2023, is now running for US House of Representatives from the 10th Congressional District of Virginia, which has a sizable Indian-American population.

The decision of Subramanyam came after the current occupant Democrat Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton announced that she would not be running for the seat. Subramanyam was born in Houston to Indian-American parents who migrated to the US from Bengaluru.

In 2105, he was appointed by then-President Barack Obama to serve as a White House technology policy advisor.

“I worked really well though with our current congresswoman Jennifer Wexton. She was always a mentor to me, and so I felt like we were in good hands with her. But she’s retiring and I felt like this was an opportunity, not for me, but really for my community to have someone who’s one phone call away who’s accessible, who will go the extra mile to solve their issues,” he said.

“One of my favourite parts of being an elected office is the constituent services and being there for people on their hardest days. As a member of Congress, I can really empower people to a different level. And then I also really want to take on the dysfunction in Washington and the extremism,” said Subramanyam.

Subramanyam said that he wants to do progressive work for the US.

“I think we’ve seen government shutdowns and the threats of them hurt my community particularly. We have also seen key confirmations upheld, and that really hurts us as a country and on the global stage as well. I am looking forward to this challenge.

“I think it’s a challenge that I have taken in the past and won, and it’s something that I want to take on as well with the new generation of leadership,” he said.

Subramanyam is a well-known face in the 10th Congressional District as he has been elected to the State legislature since 2019.

As per the latest data from the Federal Election Commission, he raised 2,55,000 from individual contributions in the last quarter till December 31, 2023.

Daniel Helmer is leading the group in Democratic primaries in terms of fundraising of USD 5,95,00 in the same quarter.

Subramanyam argues that he is running for Congress for the better future of America.

“The Congress is here to solve problems and to be proactive about the future. We should not be legislating not just for the next two years, but for the next 20 or 30 years. I’ve got two girls. They are two and three years. I want them to live in a better country and world than what we found,” he said.

“Right now, there’s a lot of short-termism, and there’s a lot of selfishness when it comes to the way we’re legislating. What I want to see as a Congress, is one, funding our budgets regularly and without fail, and that means no threats of government shutdowns or automatic funding of government. We need to put that in our rules,” he said.

Subramanyam said that the second thing he wants to do is to make sure that people are having a good interaction with their government and good action with our community.

“And third, there are some people in Congress right now who care more about their tweets and likes on social media than getting things done. What we need to do is take away the power that they currently have, which seems to be a lot right now, especially under this leadership in Congress and put in the hands of people who actually want to get things done, solve problems, and fix this dysfunction that I’m talking about,” he said.

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