: Bobby Jindal Member of the U.
Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (born June 10, 1971 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is a Louisiana politician. Jindal was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives on November 2, 2004, from Louisiana's First Congressional District (map), based in the suburbs of New Orleans.
He recently defeated Democrats David Gereighty and Stacey Tallitsch, and Libertarian candidate Peter Beary in his re-election bid in November 2006.
Biography
Jindal was born in Baton Rouge to recently arrived Indian immigrants who were attending graduate school. Jindal was a Hindu but converted to Catholicism in high school at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. In 1992, he graduated from Brown University with honors in biology and public policy. Afterwards, he received a master's degree in politics from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. After Oxford he joined McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm.
He was appointed the Louisiana Secretary of Department of Health & Hospitals by governor Mike Foster, where he served from 1996 to 1998. From 1998 to 1999, he was Executive Director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. He was also the youngest ever president of the University of Louisiana System between 1999 and 2001. Newly elected president George W. Bush appointed him Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; he held that post from 2001 to 2003.
He is the only Indian-American currently serving in Congress, and is only the second in Congressional history after Dalip Singh Saund, who served California's 29th District as a Democrat between 1957 and 1963.
He was chosen by Scholastic Update magazine as "one of America's top 10 extraordinary young people for the next millennium."
Bobby Jindal was India Abroad Person of the Year 2005 (Rediff)
He married Supriya Jolly in 1997 and has three children, Selia, Shaan and Slade.
On Tuesday, August 15, 2006, Rep. Jindal assisted in delivering his third child when his wife awoke, in labor, and delivered the child before ambulances had time to respond.[1]
2003 race for Governor
In the 2003 jungle primary for governor of Louisiana Jindal came in first place with 33 percent of the vote. He received endorsements from the largest paper in Louisiana (the New Orleans Times Picayune), the Democratic mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin, and the outgoing Republican governor Mike Foster. In the runoff election he faced then-Lt. Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco in 2003, a Democrat. Blanco won with 52 percent of the vote to Jindal's 48 percent. Other political analysts have blamed Jindal for his refusal to answer questions about his record brought up in several ads, which the Jindal Campaign called "negative attack ads". Still others note that a significant number of conservative Louisianans remain more comfortable voting for a Democrat than for a Republican.
Despite losing the election, the run for governor made Jindal a well known figure on the state's political scene. He is considered a leading Republican candidate for the Louisiana gubernatorial election of 2007. He recently took a major step towards another run for Governor by reactivating the Friends of Bobby Jindal gubernatorial account.
House victory
A few weeks after the gubernatorial runoff, Jindal decided to run for Louisiana's 1st Congressional District . The incumbent, David Vitter, was running for the Senate seat being vacated by John Breaux. He moved to Kenner to run for the congressional seat. He was endorsed by the Louisiana Republican Party in the open primary despite the fact that Mike Rogers, also a Republican, was running for the same seat. The 1st District has been in Republican hands since a 1977 special election and is widely considered to be the most Republican district in Louisiana. Despite having a plurality of Democrats, the district tends to vote for socially conservative candidates. Jindal also had an advantage because his campaign was able to raise over a million dollars very early in the campaign, making it harder for other candidates to effectively raise funds to oppose him. He won with 78% of the vote.
He was quickly made Freshman Class President and appointed to the House Committee on Homeland Security, the House Committee on Resources, and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Furthermore, he was made the Vice-Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attacks.
The extremely popular Jindal easily won his 2006 re-election bid, having received 88% of the vote.
Positions on Selected Issues
Congressman Jindal has stated that he is "100% against abortion, no exceptions"[2]. During his run for Governor he distinguished himself from his Democratic rival, who was also pro-life, by embracing an abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest. His definition of abortion differs from the medical community as it only includes procedures that target the embryo or fetus, a definition that exclude procedures, such as a salpingectomy, that do not target the embryo specifically but may result in abortion. He has stated that he would allow emergency contraception, which some pro-life groups consider morally equivalent to abortion[3]. Nonetheless the "no exceptions" position is especially controversial, not least because there are conflicting reports (see discussion) as to whether Jindal believes abortion should even be permissible to save a woman's life (the most common exception to abortion bans). As of July 24, 2006 his House of Representatives website does not even contain the word "abortion"[4]
His voting record on the subject reflects the f="http://www.avoo.com/wiki/Republican_Party" title="Republican Party">Republican Party's opposition to abortion; to date he has voted to preserve the ban on privately-funded abortions at overseas U.S. military facilities, to ban the transportation of minors across state lines to have abortions, and to continue to prohibit the Federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research[5][6] using new stem cell lines.
When the plan was submitted to the voters, Jindal voted for the "Stelly Tax plan", an idea that was supposed to reduce the tax burden on a majority of Louisiana taxpayers. Whether or not the "Stelly Plan" is giving the desired results is still hotly debated statewide. Early Republican challenger Steve Scalise challenged Jindal on his vote for this tax plan before he dropped out of the Congressional race.
Jindal supported a Constitutional amendment banning flag burning, and the Real ID Act of 2005.
Jindal has an A rating from Gun Owners of America. He was the congressional sponsor of the Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act.
Jindal also supports co-payments in Medicaid.
Sources and external links
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