Ami Bera

As Americans prepare to vote in the November 3 midterms, with all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives up for election, attention turns to the lawmakers who hold those seats. Among them is Ami Bera, a doctor-turned-lawmaker who has represented Sacramento County since 2013 and is the longest-serving Indian American in Congress.

Bera holds California’s 6th Congressional District, which lies entirely within Sacramento County, just east and north of the state capital. In Washington, he sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific and on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He also belongs to the New Democrat Coalition, a group of more than 110 Democrats that advocates pro-growth, pro-innovation and fiscally responsible policies.

A Californian shaped by public schools and student loans

The son of Indian immigrants, Bera has lived in California all his life and gone through the state’s public schools from grammar school to medical school. He earned both his bachelor’s degree and his medical degree at the University of California, Irvine. By working part-time, taking scholarships and federally funded student loans, and relying on his family, he put himself through medical school and graduated with less than $10,000 in debt.

He credits much of his success to the country’s investment in him and says he is working to ensure that America keeps investing in hard-working people so that the American Dream survives for the next generation.

Two decades in medicine

Bera spent 20 years in medicine, working to make healthcare more available, higher in quality and more affordable. After graduating from medical school in 1991, he completed his residency in internal medicine at California Pacific Medical Center, where he rose to chief resident. He then practised in the Sacramento area and held several leadership roles with MedClinic Medical Group, where his chief contribution was improving the practice’s clinical efficiency.

He later became medical director of care management at Mercy Healthcare, where he designed and rolled out a care management strategy for the seven-hospital system. He then served Sacramento County as its Chief Medical Officer, working to cut healthcare costs, create jobs and bring care to tens of thousands of residents.

Bera moved into education after that, joining the University of California, Davis, as clinical professor of medicine and associate dean for admissions and outreach. There he taught future doctors and helped the university’s student-run clinics find new ways to engage with the community and reach those who needed care most.

Constituent services and approach in Congress

In Congress, Bera says he applies the skills he learned as a doctor, listening to the people of Sacramento County and putting people ahead of politics. He says his priority is to work with members of both parties on the country’s most pressing challenges, and he argues that Congress should be a place for service, not for politicians who look only to protect their own careers, pay and perks.

His office says it has returned more than $23 million to local taxpayers, from backlogged veterans’ benefits to Social Security savings, and has helped more than 36,000 Sacramento County residents since 2013.

Bera has lived in Sacramento County for more than 30 years with his wife, Janine, who is also a medical doctor. They have a daughter, Sydra.