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Chaudhary makes a bid for Senate

Vinay Kumar

Representative Satveer Chaudhary, who announced his candidacy for Minnesota Senate District 52, said he hopes to bring in some young blood into the House, Focus News has reported. If he wins, he will become the youngest senator in Minnesota history.

Chaudhary, who takes on Republican Dan Coughlin to occupy the seat left vacant by Senator Steve Novak (Democrat), for the past 20 years, thus hopes to become, at 31, the youngest senator in Minnesota history.

According to Chaudhary, he welcomes the added pressure and responsibility his relative youth puts on him.

During his two terms in the House of Representatives, Chaudhary has worked on initiatives to decrease class sizes, lessen government debt and reduce prescription drug costs.

Chaudhary is the first Asian American ever elected to Minnesota's legislature, and only the fourth person of Indian descent elected to a legislature in American history.

Chaudhary, who was elected the first Asian-American to the Minnesota Legislature, is only the second Indian American state legislator in the country other than Kumar Barve (Democrat) of Montgomery, Maryland.

Satveer, born in America of immigrant parents, lives in Fridley. He earned a BA in political science before doing law at the University of Minnesota Law School. He has served on committees like Jobs and Economic Development Policy; Education Policy; Family and Early Childhood Education Finance.

Chaudhary has also chaired the Anoka County Legislative Delegation and the DWI Subcommittee. He was nominated 1997 Freshman Legislator of the Year, and serves on the Crime Victim Services Council.

Chaudhary says he won't run a negative campaign and hopes the community will see him through. Coughlin isn't really deterred though.

"Joe American doesn't necessarily need the college-educated aristocratic types telling the rest of us what to do and how to think," he said.

Coughlin says there is a leadership vacuum that he could fill since, as a small business owner, he understood the concerns of the average entrepreneur. Coughlin has the advantage of being a family man with two children; Chaudhary is single.

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