Raja Krishnamoorthi

Krishnamoorthi was sworn into office on January 3, 2017, stating, "I will continue to focus on the middle class and our commitment to ensure that hard work is rewarded."

While Krishnamoorthi attended President Donald Trump's January 2017 inauguration, he said he did so in part "because I want President Trump to look at the crowd and Congress and see on day one that he will be strongly opposed if he continues to pursue policies that hurt working families." The day before the inauguration, Krishnamoorthi was included in a list featured in The Guardian of "up-and-coming leaders of the Trump resistance in Washington."

In June 2017, the House unanimously passed the Thompson-Krishnamoorthi Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, which would overhaul the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act and provide more flexibility to states. In November 2017, Krishnamoorthi and GT Thompson co-led a letter to the Senate education committee with 235 fellow members of the House urging them to take up the legislation.

During the tax reform debate in Congress, Krishnamoorthi spoke out numerous times against the proposed elimination of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction and its impact on working families in Illinois. In October 2017, he sent two letters about the proposed deduction, one to Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner alongside fellow Illinois members Foster and Luis Gutierrez and one to the Chair and Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee, urging them to preserve the deduction.

During a January 2017 floor debate in the House of Representatives, Krishnamoorthi argued against repealing the Affordable Care Act. Citing his experience running small businesses, Krishnamoorthi said, "repealing without replacing the Affordable Care Act would devastate our economy and harm millions of middle-class families. Within the 8th District of Illinois, we could lose upwards of over $550 million from our economy and over 4,000 jobs. I know firsthand how important health coverage is to workers and to business. Without the protections of the Affordable Care Act, we will see fewer entrepreneurs take the risk of starting a business and fewer workers take the risk of working for a start-up."

In September 2017, Krishnamoorthi co-led a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services with Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings requesting documents and information related to the decision to schedule outages of HealthCare.gov during the 2017 open enrollment period.

In July 2017, Krishnamoorthi introduced the Presidential Pardon Transparency Act, which would require that all presidential pardons be disclosed to the public within three days of being granted. The legislation followed reports that Trump was consulting senior aides and the White House counsel about his ability to pardon associates, family members, and himself.

In October 2017, Krishnamoorthi questioned the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau about the number of mistakes made in Senior Presidential Advisor Jared Kushner's security clearance during a hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In response to repeated questioning about whether he could recall "if there has ever been an applicant having to submit four addenda detailing over 100 errors and omissions being able to maintain their security clearance once those errors have been identified," Director Phalen said that he had never seen that level of mistakes.

On January 28, 2017, Trump's executive order placing restrictions on people entering the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries caused 18 travelers arriving at O'Hare International Airport to be detained and questioned by federal officers, including a family of legal permanent residents and their 18-month-old baby, who held U.S. citizenship. Krishnamoorthi arrived at O'Hare within hours to speak to immigration officials but was told they were unavailable. While joining a protest at the airport Krishnamoorthi said of the detentions, "They applied legally, they've been vetted and they've been here, in many cases, for decades, and they were detained by their own country at the airport. So many of our businesses rely on green card holders. How are we supposed to attract these people if they think they'll be detained at the airport if they go abroad for a wedding, or just to show their baby to relatives?"

In January 2017, Krishnamoorthi, a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, and his elder son attended the Cubs' official White House commemoration of their World Series victory.

When Duckworth ran for the U.S. Senate in 2016, Krishnamoorthi again declared his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives. He won the March 2016 primary election with 57% of the vote, to Michael Noland's 29% and Deb Bullwinkel's 13%. Krishnamoorthi defeated Republican Pete DiCianni in the November general election, capturing 58.1% of the vote after a campaign in which he vowed to fight for middle-class families in Congress.

In 2010, Krishnamoorthi ran for the Democratic Party nomination for Illinois Comptroller. He lost the primary election to David E. Miller by less than 1% of the vote. In 2012 he ran for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives seat in Illinois's 8th congressional district , and lost to Tammy Duckworth.

After being appointed to the Board of the Illinois Housing Development Authority, Krishnamoorthi practiced law and then served as a special assistant attorney general, helping start the state's anti-corruption unit under Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. He served as deputy state treasurer for Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias from 2007 to 2009 and then as Vice-Chairman of the Illinois Innovation Council. He was the president of high-tech small businesses in the Chicago area until he resigned before entering Congress to eliminate any conflicts of interest.

After graduating from Harvard, Krishnamoorthi served as a law clerk for Joan B. Gottschall and worked on Barack Obama's 2000 election campaign for the United States House of Representatives. He also served as an issues director for Obama's 2004 campaign for the United States Senate, and aided in the development of Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address.

Subramanian Raja Krishnamoorthi (/ˈ r ɑː dʒ ə ˌ k r ɪ ʃ n ə ˈ m ʊər θ i / born July 19, 1973) is an American businessman and politician who is the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district . He was first elected in 2016 to succeed Tammy Duckworth, who gave up the seat to successfully run for the U.S. Senate. Krishnamoorthi is a member of the Democratic Party and serves on the House Oversight Committtee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He is also Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, and as an Assistant Whip and a member of the Speaker's Steering and Policy Committee.

In 1973, Krishnamoorthi was born into a Tamil-speaking family in New Delhi, India. His family moved to Buffalo, New York when he was three months old so that his father could attend graduate school. Though some early economic hardships necessitated living in public housing and using food assistance for a time, in 1980, the Krishnamoorthis moved to Peoria, Illinois where his father became a professor at Bradley University and they enjoyed a middle-class upbringing. Krishnamoorthi attended public schools in Peoria and was a valedictorian of his graduating class at Richwoods High School.