Amish Shah quits Arizona House to focus on Congress run

Indian American Democratic Rep Amish Shah has resigned his Arizona House seat to focus on his run for the US Congress.

“This has been a super educational experience for me,” Shah said Wednesday on the House floor. “I went from an ordinary citizen to now a man running for Congress.”

Shah, 46, a Phoenix Democrat in the middle of his third two-year term in the state House, is seeking to unseat seven-term veteran incumbent Republican US Rep. David Schweikert in Congressional District seat 1.

READ: Amish Shah raises $530,000 for Congressional run from Arizona (July 17, 2023)

The race has become crowded since he first announced his plans to run for Congress in April, with seven other Democrats and five Republicans vying to replace Schweikert, Arizona Republic reported.

“I’ll forever carry a little bit of your perspectives that you have given to me, and I’ll take it forward to wherever I end up later,” Shah told his colleagues on the House floor before reminiscing about his favorite times over the past five years,.

A Mayo Clinic doctor who used to work as a team physician for the New York Jets, Shah made health-care policy a top priority during his time in the Legislature.

He last year was one of the more successful Democrats at getting bills heard or passed with help from his Republican colleagues, according to the Republic.

READ: Arizona House member Amish Shah to run for US Congress (April 25, 2023)

Bills he saw signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs included a measure to speed up the release of prisoner medical records to family members and streamlined licensing requirements for outpatient facilities run by hospitals.

His secret, as cited by the Republic, is a willingness to talk to people and discuss shared values and goals. He hopes to bring that talent to Congress.

Shah’s mother and father were engineering students who immigrated from India in the 1960s. His father is Jain and his mother is Hindu.

He attended Catholic school from grades K-12. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics From Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

He graduated from Northwestern University Medical School as part of the Honors Program in Medical Education.

After medical school, Shah worked for LEK Consulting, LLC, an international strategy consulting firm. He completed a Master’s in Public Health with a full Merit Scholarship at the University of California, Berkeley, followed by residency training in Emergency Medicine at New York City’s busiest Level I trauma center.

He won the American Academy of Emergency Medicine’s National Resident Research Competition for his work in inventing a new method to provide care for the critically Illinois.

Shah taught medical students and residents at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York as a full-time faculty member and academic researcher. He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals. While there, he also led the New York Jets Airway Management Team.

Amidst concern over the potential catastrophic injuries, he helped the NFL improve their emergency management through research and presented his work at the NFL Physicians’ Society.

He has been the recipient of several awards for the quality of his service, including the Arizona Capitol Times’ Best Political Rising Star for two consecutive years, the Arizona Medical Association’s Distinguished Community Service Award, and the Humane Society’s Legislator of the Year.

He is the recipient of the 2022 Legislator of the Year / Womens’ Health Champion Award from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.