Satveer Chaudhary


Satveer Singh Chaudhary is an American politician and a former member of the Minnesota State Senate and the Minnesota House of Representatives serving from 1996 to 2010. During his fourteen-year tenure, Chaudhary represented portions of Anoka and Ramsey counties in the northern Minneapolis and St Paul metropolitan area. The Senate District at the time of his departure from politics was known as Senate District 50, but Chaudhary also represented the area in the Minnesota House from 1997-2000 in District 52A; and in the Senate from 2001 to 2002. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. He was the first Asian American legislator in Minnesota history, for a time the highest ranking political official of South Asian descent and one of the youngest senators in that state.
On August 10, 2010, Chaudhary was defeated by former Minnesota House Member Barb Goodwin in the primary election.

Early life and career

Chaudhary was born in Minneapolis in 1969. Chaudhary's parents immigrated from India in 1966. His father, Dr. S.P.S. Chaudhary, is a retired inspector with the United States Department of Agriculture. Chaudhary's mother, Raj Mohini Chaudhary, worked as a research assistant at the University of Minnesota, owned an import firm, and established a family wellness foundation for the South Asian community SEWA-AIFW.
His parents moved to the suburbs of Minneapolis in 1976 and Chaudhary spent the remainder of his youth in Fridley, Minnesota. He attended Columbia Heights High School, where Chaudhary claimed a government teacher, Jack Gause, first got him involved in state politics.
After graduation from high school in 1987, Chaudhary went on to receive his B.A. in Political Science from St. Olaf College. As an undergraduate, he was in the student senate and lobbied for the state student coalition. While an undergraduate student he also attended Manchester College, Oxford University in England where he studied British and American foreign policy. Upon his return to the United States in 1991, Chaudhary graduated from St. Olaf and then served as a staff member for Senator Edward Kennedy, working in the area of foreign policy. In 1992, Chaudhary took a year off from academics to work on the Tom Harkin presidential campaign and Gerry Sikorski's last 6th Congressional District race.
After his time in Washington, D.C., Chaudhary continued his studies in law at the University of Minnesota Law School. As a law student, Chaudhary clerked for Judge John Stanoch and at the Hennepin County, Minnesota Attorney’s Office. Chaudhary also acted as Special Assistant to Skip Humphrey during his time as Attorney General of Minnesota. He received the Governor’s Certificate of Commendation for his work with the Legal Aid Society in Minneapolis and was an author for the Journal of Global Trade. Chaudhary graduated from law school in 1995.

Law Practice

In 2000, Satveer Chaudhary opened a private law office. Chaudhary was named 2004 Alumni of the Year for the University of Minnesota Law School.

Minnesota House of Representatives

Just two weeks out of law school, Chaudhary ran for the Minnesota House of Representatives in the July 1995 special election for the District 52A legislative seat, in a Minneapolis suburban area that includes parts of Fridley and New Brighton and all of Columbia Heights and Hilltop. Chaudhary lost the race, but later defeated the winner, Republican incumbent Skip Carlson in a 1996 rematch. At the time he was elected, Chaudhary became the first Asian-American member of the Minnesota Legislature, and the fourth Indian-American elected to a state legislature in U.S. history.
While in the House, Chaudhary made contributed to legislation on healthcare access, education and economic development priorities. During this period of Chaudhary's legislative career, he was a member of the Minnesota Conservation Federation, the Columbia Heights Lions Club, the Fridley Kiwanis, and became a member of the Fridley Human Resources Commission.
Chaudhary was re-elected to the House in 1998. During his second term in office, he continued to work on environmental legislation and financial reform of the Minnesota State Lottery. He also became a member of the Police Officers Alliance of Minnesota.

Minnesota Senate

In 2000, incumbent Senator Steve Novak resigned to run for Minnesota's 4th congressional district. Chaudhary received the nomination from the local Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party chapter and ran against Republican Daniel Coughlin in the November general election. Chaudhary won the election with 57 percent of the votes.
When he joined the Senate at age 31, Satveer Chaudhary was the youngest senator ever elected in Minnesota, and became the first Asian-Indian state senator in American history. In 2001, Chaudhary was chosen to be a delegate by the American Council of Young Political Leaders representing the United States State Legislatures and traveling to Argentina and Uruguay. Later that year, he escorted the Dalai Lama during his State visit to Minnesota.
Due to the 2000 Census and redistricting, Chaudhary's first Minnesota senate term was two years. In 2002, he ran for a four-year term in the newly-redistricted SD-52 against Republican Steve Minar. Chaudhary won the election with 55.5 percent of the vote. During his next term, Chaudhary served on new Senate committees focusing on the environment, tHe also assumed a leadership position within the Senate as Senate Majority Whip.
As Vice Chair of the Fish and Game Subcommittee, Chaudhary was the Chief Author of the 2005 Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources reform bill, and co-authored legislation on clean air and water. In 2006, because of his work with the environmental legislations, citizen's groups and outdoors organizations, Chaudhary was appointed by Senate Majority Leader, Dean Johnson to serve on the newly-created Legislative and Citizen’s Commission on Minnesota Resources.
In 2006, Chaudhary ran again for the SD-50 senate seat against Republican Rae Hart Anderson. He was re-elected with 63% of the vote.
In 2010, after political controversies, Chaudhary lost the DFL endorsement for the SD-50 senate seat. He lost in the primary to DFL-endorsed former representative Barb Goodwin with 30.9 percent of the vote.

Controversies

In 2002, a Republican political challenger of Chaudhary filed a complaint with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board against the "Friends of Satveer Chaudhary Committee". The complaint alleged that the campaign committee failed to report some contributions and expenditures on the committee’s Report of Receipts and Expenditures for 2000. Specifically, the Complainant alleged that the committee failed to report expenditures for mailings in 2000. All allegations against the "Friends of Satveer Chaudhary Committee" were dismissed by the board, but the matter was referred to the Ramsey County Attorney. The Ramsey County Attorney chose not to pursue the matter.
On April 25, 2006, the Saint Paul Police Department investigated a death threat made against the senator. Chaudhary, who had just voted against a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage, had received a letter containing a picture of himself with a bullet hole through his forehead. The picture was attached to a newspaper ad run promoting the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions. In a media statement, Chaudhary denounced the letter as political hate speech. The group that ran the ad, Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage, condemned the letter and said it did not condone threats of violence.
During the 2010 Session of the Minnesota Legislature, Saint Louis County Commissioner, Dennis Fink, asked Chaudhary to insert a provision into a fish and game bill that would place special fishing regulations Fish Lake in northern Minnesota. The Chaudhary family owns a cabin on leased land on part of the lake. The Senator then approached Representative David Dill on the House floor, and requested that he insert the language into the bill. After the close of session, Republicans in the Senate raised a question as to the appropriateness of Chaudhary's change to the legislation. In response, Senator Chaudhary requested that the Senate Ethics Panel provide an independent review of the situation, even though no complaint had been filed against him. On June 2, 2010, after finding that Chaudhary had no conflict of interest in introducing the legislation, the Minnesota Senate Subcommittee on Ethical Conduct admonished Chaudhary for the manner in which he introduced the legislation and for violating procedure.
In May 2010, the Senate District 50 DFL Party leadership decided to hold a meeting in June 2010 to discuss revocation of Chaudhary's DFL endorsement due to Chaudhary's endorsement of DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton over the DFL-endorsed candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher and the Fish Lake issue. On June 1, 2010 former State Representative Barbara Goodwin filed for office as a DFL candidate against Chaudhary in the Minnesota primary election to be held on August 10, 2010.
On July 8, 2010 the Duluth News Tribune reported that Chaudhary and his wife owed the IRS $252,000 in past-due personal income taxes: $100,000 for 2007 and $151,000 for 2008. In response, Chaudhary acknowledged that there was an existing payment plan with the IRS, and that the actual amount owed had just been determined in late 2009. Chaudhary stated the debt had been incurred due to a stock option issue with his wife's former employer. On August 1, 2010 it was announced that the family had paid the taxes in full.
On June 28, 2010, the Senate District 50 DFL Central Committee voted by over two-thirds to revoke their endorsement of Chaudhary and instead endorsed Barbara Goodwin as the new candidate for Minnesota Senate. Chaudhary appealed the Senate District Committee's decision to a special panel of the State DFL Party. On July 11, 2010, the special panel of the Minnesota DFL Party unanimously upheld the revocation of Chaudhary's endorsement. Chaudhary still chose to proceed to the Minnesota primary election as an unendorsed DFL candidate. On August 10, 2010, Chaudhary was defeated in the primary. In November 2010, Barbara Goodwin defeated New Brighton City Council member, Gina Bauman, to win the District 50 Senate seat.
After Chaudhary's defeat, he announced that he would return to private law practice full-time.