APAICS | Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies

Sam Arora is an advocate and small businessman with more than a decade of experience of Arora fights for progressive valuesworking in public service and organizing for progressive Democrats. Arora grew up in Derwood and has witnessed how our community still faces many of the same challenges we have known for years—they are getting bigger and demand a new generation of innovative ideas. He believes it is time for new, home-grown leadership to look at these challenges in a different way and have the courage to find creative solutions and stand up to special interests in Annapolis.


A Career in Public Service, Fighting for Progressive Values

Arora’s experience in government includes positions in the U.S. Senate and clerkships with the criminal appellate division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler. Under Gansler, Arora published resources for Maryland non-profit organizations to navigate the State’s legal requirements and helped prepare legislation to ban the sale of the dangerous hallucinogenic drug Salivia divinorum in Maryland.

Arora served as an aide to then-Senator Hillary Clinton and worked Former Aide to Hillary Clintonon three of her campaigns. During the 2008 general election, he volunteered for Barack Obama and travelled to other states to help get out the vote. Previously, Arora worked for the Democratic National Committee, where he was an aide to the chair of the Democratic Party. As an organizer, Arora recruited thousands of volunteers to combat the Bush administration’s agenda and build a Democratic majority in Congress. He also has advised several non-profit organizations on strategic communications planning.

A graduate of Georgetown Law, Arora is also a leader in the American Bar Association, where he sits on the policy-making body of the 410,000-attorney organization.


Small Business Experience

Arora is Vice President for Business Development of the AroraArora fought in Annapolis to create jobs Group, a Montgomery County small business that provides health care services to veterans, active-duty military personnel, and their families. Arora’s family founded the company more than 20 years ago in Derwood. The Arora Group serves medical treatment facilities around the country, including at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Bethesda Naval Hospital, the National Institutes of Health, and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

From his business development experience, Arora knows how to create jobs and stimulate economic growth and understands Maryland’s potential—particularly Montgomery County’s potential—to attract high-growth, high-value industries to our area. He has spoken out on the need to fight to bring jobs to Maryland and even testified before the General Assembly on behalf of the Job Creation Tax Credit, which Governor O’Malley later signed into law. Arora believes that middle-class taxpayers and small businesses should not have to shoulder more than their fair share while national corporations doing business in Maryland evade taxes by using tax loopholes to hide revenue.


Education

Arora’s dedication to public service and the law led him to earn a J.D. at Georgetown Law, where his peers elected him president of the student body. He is a cum laude graduate of Columbia University, where he guest teaches a class on presidential campaigning each year. He also studied politics, philosophy, and economics at the University of Oxford and was salutatorian of his graduating class at the Barrie School in Silver Spring.