AMAR'S PLAN

Annapolis stopped working for District 39. Here is how we fix it.

The Four Fights

01 — Reclaim Our Democracy

Ban Corporate money, enact open primaries and fair maps, protect voting and women’s rights, stop ICE.

02 — Make the American Dream Affordable

Enact Universal healthcare and tax cuts for seniors, lower utility bills, child care and elder care costs.

03 — Gun-Free, World-Class Schools

Make MCPS the national model again, ban convertible pistols, expand vocational training, and improve school culture.

04 — Meet the Challenges of Our Time

Extend the Red Line to Germantown, create clean energy opportunity zones, and confront AI.

Amar's Plan to Reclaim Our Democracy

Ban Corporate Money in Politics

Hawaii and Arizona run public financing systems that actually work. Special interests have eaten away at our democracy, and Maryland is overdue to start a different path.

Reproductive Rights, Permanently Protected

Roe is gone, and the Trump administration is coming next for contraception and IVF. Maryland passed a constitutional amendment in 2024, but the fight isn't finished. Amar will pass the enforcement legislation that protects out-of-state patients, shields Maryland providers, and locks in IVF and contraception access before the next federal rollback. Maryland women's rights should not depend on a federal court.

Keep ICE Out of Maryland

The Maryland Values Act should have passed in 2025, but the incumbent state senator opposed it. It finally passed this year, but it left loopholes. Amar will close them to truly stop all data-sharing with ICE and prevent ICE detention centers in our state.

Open the Primaries

Nearly a million Marylanders, more than 900,000 of them, are registered as unaffiliated, and they are the fastest-growing group of voters in the state. They are still locked out of choosing their senator. Eighteen other states have already opened their primaries. Maryland is overdue.

Ban Masking by ICE Agents

A broken federal immigration system does not justify secret police operating in Maryland communities. If a federal agents can't show their face, they should not be making an arrest.

Bring Young Men Back to the Democratic Party

The Democratic Party has lost the support of young men, especially young men of color, working-class men, and veterans. We will not win them back by lecturing them. We win them.

Fight Republican Gerrymandering and Work for Fair Maps

When Trump called on Texas to redraw its maps, Amar understood that doing nothing would only enable MAGA’s abuse of power. That’s why, unlike his opponent he immediately called on Maryland to respond. But beyond that he has a plan to work towards the end of partisan gerrymandering nationwide. The first step is creating a fair maps commission to end partisan gerrymandering for state and county level offices in Maryland.

For Amar, this fight is personal.

He believes immigrants are patriots

Amar's parents are immigrants from Pakistan and India. They didn't leave war, corruption, and right-wing dictatorship to watch the same darkness take root here.

Amar grew up to serve as a combat engineer in the US Army Reserve. He learned in the military that protecting a democracy means being willing to fight for it on every front, at home and abroad.

Universal Healthcare for Maryland

The simple fact is that the U.S. pays twice as much for worse health outcomes than countries like France, Switzerland, and Germany. It won’t be easy to get there, but we can start.

Washington State built the country’s first public option, and it now offers the lowest-premium silver plan in 31 of its counties. Massachusetts has cut its uninsured rate to just over 2 percent, the lowest in the nation. Connecticut eliminated Managed Care Organizations in Medicaid and saved taxpayers more than $700 million per year.

Maryland should be leading. If we are to vote out politicians who take money from big insurance companies, we can improve care while lowering costs for families, businesses, and taxpayers. That is a true win-win for all of us.

Step one: Eliminate Managed Care Organizations in Medicaid to save Maryland an estimated $300–500 million per year.

Step two: Invest in tuition-free pathways for nurses and doctors who commit to serving Maryland, reducing debt burdens and helping fix provider shortages.

Step three: Tax sugary beverages and junk food to fund healthy school meals and healthy food for low-income families.

Step four: Implement reforms like Washington and Massachusetts to expand coverage and build the state’s ability to negotiate better rates with providers.

Step five: Apply to CMS and OPM so Maryland can offer its own better, lower-cost Medicare Advantage and FEHB/GEHA-style health plans.

These first five steps would help Maryland address some of the root causes of high health care costs and poor outcomes (food, workforce shortages, debt etc.) while also building our state’s ability to negotiate better rates and cut out middlemen.

Paid Family and Medical Leave That Actually Works

Take On Private Equity: Housing, HOA Fees, Child Care, Elder Care, Dentistry, Veterinary Care, and Everything.

Amar's Plan to Make the American Dream Affordable

Maryland's paid leave program has been delayed three years in a row. The original 2025 start has been pushed to 2028. New mothers, caregivers, and families with sick parents cannot wait again. Amar will fight to fund it, launch it, and make it happen.

The American Dream is built on the opportunity to own our own homes and small businesses. Low costs are built on small businesses competing to provide better prices and better service. But America has shifted away from that and toward corporate monopolies. Private equity is buying up small, locally owned providers in every industry. They are buying up Maryland homes, HOA management companies, dental clinics, veterinary practices, elder care facilities, and child care centers. We may not see it, but we feel the effects. Their strategy is to consolidate industries, build as much market share as possible, stifle competition, and then jack up prices. Amar will take on these anti-competitive practices, protect small businesses, defend the opportunity for all of us to build and own something of our own, and lower costs across the board.

Lower Car Insurance Premiums

Maryland has the most expensive car insurance in the country. The average driver here pays over $4,000 a year for full coverage. The cause is lobbyist-written rules that punish drivers in lower-income zip codes for things that have nothing to do with their driving. This is corruption with a polished name on it, and it is fixable.

For Amar, Affordability Is Personal.

His family moved seven times before he graduated high school, finding stability only when a family friend took them in rent-free. He knows what it feels like when every dollar matters, and he knows what it's worth when someone gives a struggling family a real chance.

Tax Cuts for Seniors

Pennsylvania exempts all retirement income from state tax. Virginia exempts the first $40,000. Maryland should exempt all pension, IRA, and 401(k) income up to $60,000. Seniors who built this state deserve to stay in the homes they raised their families in.

Faster Licensing for Tradespeople

The trades are some of the best jobs in the age of AI. But Marylands licensing systems are antiquated. For example, a licensed plumber in Maryland waits months and pays thousands more than a plumber in a neighboring state. Our systems keep highly skilled workers, especially immigrant and minority workers, out of good jobs that Maryland desperately needs filled to provide lower cost services.

Amar's parents are entrepreneurs. They had real success in the 90s, but their company went bankrupt when Amar was nine.

Lower Our Utility Bills

Our utility bills are skyrocketing, and Maryland’s utilities are posting record profits. This did not happen overnight. The politicians in office created this problem. While taking money from utility companies, Maryland politicians, including our incumbent senator, allowed the out-of-state company Exelon to buy up Pepco and BGE, allowed that company to sell off its power-generating assets to Constellation Energy to escape utility regulations, let data centers avoid paying their fair share, killed the electricity choice program, and let Maryland become one of the few states in the nation to approve multi-year rate hikes.

This problem is decades in the making, and Amar is an energy engineer with the experience to help us change course.

Step one: Ban utility companies from contributing to politicians or funding legislative dinners, and prevent anyone who has accepted utility contributions or worked as a utility lobbyist from serving on utility regulatory boards like the PSC.

Step two: Repeal the bill that ended energy choice and stop data centers from driving up costs.

Step three: Expedite permitting and invest in the transmission-line workforce to clear backlogs and get low-cost clean power on the grid.

Step four: End the multi-year rate hikes and renegotiate with utilities for a fairer deal for Maryland.

This won’t be easy. Our utilities are posting record profits and they will fight to protect them.

Amar will fight to give Marylanders need a break.

Amar's Plan for Gun-Free, World-Class Schools

Make MCPS the National Model Again

Upcounty schools have never gotten their fair share of funding. Nancy has had over 20 years to fix this. Amar is building the grassroots movement Annapolis can’t ignore and demanding more from every dollar: fixing school culture, working to regulate the AI and social media algorithms that are disrupting student outcomes, fully engaging parents, rewarding great teachers, removing those who shouldn’t be in the classroom, and giving educators room to actually innovate.

Opportunity Starts With Safety

Maryland needs to ban convertible pistols, the device behind a wave of recent mass shootings, and tax reckless gun retailers to fund safer schools. Other states are already moving on pieces of this. Maryland should lead.

Protect Title IX and Girls' Sports

Every girl in Maryland deserves equal access to athletics, scholarships, and safe school facilities. Amar will defend Title IX, as it currently stands, from federal rollback.

Community Rec Centers

When parents work late and kids have nowhere safe to go, they fall behind academically and socially. Montgomery Village and Clarksburg deserve the same investment in young people that Bethesda and Rockville have had for years.

Healthy School Meals

Maryland can tax junk food at the manufacturer level and invest the revenue directly in school nutrition. It improves student outcomes, lowers long-term healthcare costs, and doesn't come out of parents' pockets.

Prepare Our Kids for an AI World

Most school assessments today can be completed by ChatGPT in thirty seconds. Our evaluations have to change. AI belongs in our schools as a tool that enhances learning, not as a shortcut that replaces it.

Vocational Training

Not every student belongs in college, and the ones who don't deserve a real path to a great career. Germany trains more than 1.2 million apprentices a year, and roughly half a million new apprentices start every year. There is no reason Maryland can't build the same kind of opportunity pipeline here.

Audit Public Benefits to Stop Punishing Two-Parent Households

Minnesota audited SNAP and Section 8 to remove rules that financially penalize families for staying together. Parental engagement went up. Test scores went up. Maryland should do the same.

Set School Culture Locally

A blanket discipline policy written in Annapolis cannot fix Clarksburg, Bethesda, and Montgomery Village at the same time. Amar will empower parents and teachers in every school community to set the behavior standards that actually fit their kids.

For Amar, MCPS Made the Difference.

Amar is a product of Montgomery County Public Schools, K through 12. Even as his family moved seven times before he graduated high school, MCPS was the one constant. It's where teachers knew him by name, pushed him, and gave him a real future.

He knows what MCPS can be when it works, and he refuses to accept it being anything less. Montgomery County can be the national model again, by demanding more from every dollar we already spend.

Amar's Plan to Meet the Challenges of Our Time: AI, Climate, and Infrastructure

Extend the Red Line to Germantown

For thirty years, the UpCounty has been promised real traffic solutions, and for thirty years Annapolis has failed. Amar has a vision for a low-cost, innovative Red Line extension to Germantown that can run along existing track. Watch.

Fight Developer Corruption: Get the UpCounty Moving

From Gaithersburg to Clarksburg, we spend our lives on I-270. Politicians who take money from real-estate developers have crammed more housing into our neighborhoods without appropriate infrastructure or local jobs. Amar does not take any developer money. He will work tirelessly to enact quick, cost-effective solutions: reopen Whites Ferry, enable two-way all day MARC service, improve Frederick Ave and other critical arteries. And he will work to prioritize job-growth and economic development so that people we in the Upcounty have job options near us.

The World's First Clean Energy Opportunity Zones

The federal government is cutting climate jobs by the thousands. Montgomery County has vast talent pools from NIST, DOE, and NRC. To fight climate change and create local jobs, Amar wants to integrate permitting reform, tax policy, workforce development, and technology transfer to help Montgomery County become the global hub for climate innovation. Texas built its economy on oil. Maryland can build the next one on what comes after.

Fix the Parking

Montgomery Village and other UpCounty communities have been overbuilt without basic supporting infrastructure, parking included. Amar will stop rewarding the developers who created the problem and require real planning standards going forward.

End Algorithmic Pricing

Maryland already banned grocery surge pricing. Amar will go further: end algorithmic price discrimination in rent, insurance, and ride-share too. AI should not be a tool to charge poor people more for the same product.

Confront the AI Threats to Women and Girls

Deepfake harassment, AI-generated intimate imagery, and algorithmic discrimination are being deployed disproportionately against women and girls. Maryland law has to catch up to what this technology is doing, and it has to catch up fast.

Slow AI's Workforce Destruction

The benefits and risks of AI are both real, and mass unemployment is the worst-case outcome of getting this wrong. Amar will fight for serious investment in retraining now, and for a deliberate pace of adoption that gives working Marylanders a fair chance to adjust.

For Amar, the Future Is Built, Not Inherited.

Amar served as a combat engineer in the US Army Reserve, in the unit that builds the roads, bridges, and infrastructure that lets everyone else move forward.

He approaches this moment the same way. Build what is needed. Protect what matters. Refuse to let the future just happen to Maryland.

It’s time to rebuild our Democracy and our party from the ground up. Let’s work together to solve the problems that have re