Meet Suraj
I am an attorney, business leader, and lecturer on business ethics at New York University who worked for President Obama.
When my parents emigrated from India in the late 1960s in search of economic opportunity, we fit three generations of our family in a two-bedroom apartment over the bodega we were running. My dad got a job working the night shift fixing subway tracks, and eventually, we started a family business in hospitality. I grew up bussing tables, filling vending machines, doing motel laundry, and helping out on construction sites. Together as a family, we lived the American Dream, something that's nearly impossible in today’s stagnant economy.
But when the financial crisis hit, the business that my parents had spent their entire lives building struggled. My parents had worked hard to send us to college, and now we had to step up and guide our family’s hospitality company through immense financial hardship and back to growth. I know what it's like to make payroll when times are tough. Empty storefronts are not political talking points to me, they’re personal.
Once we got the family business back on track, I worked on both of President Obama's campaigns and as an associate on the White House Advance Team. After Donald Trump’s election, I became a full-time organizer and helped build communities like The Arena to support a new generation of American leaders. I took to the streets - marching and fighting for the most marginalized among us, including serving as a volunteer attorney for the ACLU when Trump’s Muslim Ban came down.
I was a long-time Board Member of Atlas:DIY, a youth immigrant legal services organization in Brooklyn that was on the front lines of fighting back against Trump and ICE. I’m also on the Board of Urban Upbound, an organization dedicated to breaking cycles of poverty around public housing in New York. I serve as a visiting fellow at The Century Foundation writing on progressive policy, and on the Adjunct Faculty at New York University’s Stern School of Business teaching business ethics.
In 2020, I challenged Carolyn Maloney and came within 3 points of victory. Over 100,000 New Yorkers voted in the 2020 Democratic primary election. And even in the midst of a pandemic – our campaign drove record turnout and brought a thirty-year incumbent down to 42% of the vote. But with over 12,000 votes left to count and 30,000 ballots that never arrived – our opponent was silent while we went to court to make sure every vote was counted.
Since then I kept fighting for electoral reform, advocated for making the enhanced child tax permanent, and went back to work to help manage a pandemic stricken hospitality business amidst foreclosures.
I’m running for Congress once again because Democrats need a new generation of leaders - practical and progressive leaders who can deliver new energy and fresh ideas on how to get things done. Leaders who are always on the side of democracy, not just when it’s politically advantageous.
Our district, our city and our country are at a crossroads. We may have defeated Trump, but Trumpism is on the rise. The very future of American democracy is at stake.
I’m running against two career politicians who have listened to the whims of their corporate PAC donors rather than the needs of their constituents. They are more interested in maintaining their own power than fighting for the issues that matter. These 1990s politicians have lost nearly every major battle to Mitch McConnell - on abortion rights, gun reform, climate action, and our democracy.
Locally, they’ve contributed to a political culture of 'No’ - no to new housing, no to a living shoreline, and even no to a cutting-edge blood research center - that has led to a crisis of livability.
New Yorkers are hungry for change. They want more affordable housing, better jobs, safer streets, modern infrastructure that actually gets built in their lifetimes, and representatives who are willing to do whatever it takes to protect and codify their human rights at the federal level.
It’s time for a new approach. New fighters for a new decade. New messengers to make a better case for our values.
Education
BA, Political Science, Stanford University
MPP, Cambridge University
JD, NYU School of Law
Bar Admission
New York, 2011
