It’s not just any victory but a seminal one in which a traditionally red district in California was turned into a somewhat blue one when Elk Grove physician Dr. Ami Bera won in a nail-biting finish a week after Election Day with more than 5,700 votes eked out from provisional and absentee ballots to defeat incumbent Republican Dan Lungren in California’s 7th District. 

With his win, Bera is the third Indian-American to be elected to the House, after Dalip Singh Saund and Bobby Jindal. He will be the only Indian-American in the 113th Congress.

A feisty candidate in a Republican-favoring district, Bera lost in 2010 to Lungren but that did not stop him trying again. 

Standing in the second row during a Capitol Hill press conference called by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Nov. 13, Bera showed none of the discomfort he might have felt about his slim lead over Lungren, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration, which organizes the orientation of freshmen lawmakers.

 

Warm Welcome

During freshmen orientation week on the Hill, while votes in District 7 were still being counted and the results breathlessly awaited, Bera was the toast of the Democratic Party and the press. He was swamped by the press corps, according to the Washington Post, with reporters asking his opinion about the “fiscal cliff” – the automatic tax increase and spending cuts facing the country next year, if Republicans and Democrats don’t find a compromise on the deficit.

“Reporters from Fox, NBC and CBS asked his opinion about the fiscal cliff and whether a grand bargain on deficit reduction should be struck during the current lame-duck session,” the Post reported. “Look, the 112th Congress has had two years and they didn’t act,” Bera is quoted as saying. He got a “great big ‘welcome to Washington’ hug” from Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., when she bumped into him on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Post reported. 

He told her his team back in California was keeping a close watch on the 40,000 or so more votes to be counted.

Policy Positions

Two years after his 2010 defeat, Bera had in place a grassroots infrastructure to jumpstart his campaign again in 2012. The unabashed liberal Democrat did not soften his public policy statements to endear himself to voters in the Republican-leaning district, which could explain the extremely close race.

He criticized those he called “career politicians” and pledged to oppose congressional pay raises until unemployment goes below 5 percent in Sacramento County; lead the charge against “absurd” congressional perks, like flying first class on the taxpayers’ dime; refuse a congressional pension until Medicare and Social Security are secure for all Americans; and sponsor a “No Budget, No Pay” law that says if Congress doesn’t do its job and pass a responsible budget, members don’t get paid.

Bera, who benefited from funds sent in by Indian-Americans around the country, flaunted his “first generation” status, his parents’ immigrant story and often referred to restoring the American Dream of equal opportunity that he had benefited from on his road to becoming a doctor.   

“But for too many of us, this promise no longer rings true. We face a record jobless rate, a health care crisis, and a crumbling school system that is failing our children,” he said.

 

Key Race

During the campaign Bera was feted by a Democratic establishment eager to turn over a Republican district -- and what better way to do this than to support a successful minority physician. 

President Bill Clinton came to publicly give his campaign a boost; he appeared with Sandra Fluke, the activist hated by Republicans, who spoke out for providing women with contraceptives; and he got the endorsement of the Sacramento Bee which switched sides from 2010, saying the doctor identified better with middle-class needs.

Asked on Twitter if he identified himself as Hindu, having been born to Hindu parents, or as a Unitarian, Bera replied “Unitarian Universalist”, a non-denominational group that includes people of many faiths. But his faith did not become a subject during his campaign. Bera is married to Dr. Janine Bera and the couple live in Elk Grove with their 15-year old daughter. He will be one of few doctors in the House.