Indian-American Suhas Subramanyam runs for US House to reform Congress

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 on these types of tough challenges 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 $255,000 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 $595,00 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 want my kids, I’ve got two girls, that are two and three. I want them to live in a better country and in a better world than what we found,” he said.

“Right now, there’s a lot of short-termism, and there’s a lot of, frankly, 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’s just some people in Congress right now who care more about their tweets and their likes on social media than about 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, who actually want to solve problems, and who actually want to fix this dysfunction that I’m talking about,” he said.

Suhas said his parents come from Southern India.

“My parents are from Bengaluru and Chennai and spent some time in Secunderabad as well. They came over here because they wanted to just start a new life here. They had family here, and they felt like in India things were a little bit dysfunctional there as well. They wanted to be physicians, and you can make a great life in America as a physician,” he said.

“So, they came here to do their schooling. Dulles Airport here, and our district was their Ellis Island. It’s where they arrived and were greeted. It was a new place. They didn’t have much. Through education, through hard work and through commitment to service and to family, we’ve persevered through hard times, and we’ve been successful,” he said.