Susheela Jayapal

Susheela Jayapal (born October 31, 1962) is an American politician. Since January 2019, Jayapal has been serving as a county commissioner for Multnomah County, Oregon, the state's most populous county. She is the first Indian American to hold an elected office at the county level in Oregon.[3] She is the older sister of U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal and the daughter of Indian writer Maya Jayapal.[4]

Susheela Jayapal
Multnomah County Commissioner
Assumed office
January 3, 2019
Preceded byLoretta Smith
Constituency2nd district
Personal details
Born (1962-10-31) October 31, 1962[1]
Coimbatore, Madras State (present-day Tamil Nadu), India
Political partyDemocratic[2]
Spouse
Bradley Stuart Miller
​
​
(m. 1988; div. 2014)​
Children2
Parent
RelativesPramila Jayapal (sister)
EducationSwarthmore College (BA)
University of Chicago (JD)

Early life and education

Jayapal was born in Coimbatore, India. Growing up, her family frequently moved due to her father's job, and she lived in Bangalore as well as Jakarta and Singapore as a child. She graduated high school in Jakarta and came to the United States to attend Swarthmore College at the age of 16.[5] After graduating from Swarthmore with a degree in economics at age 20, Jayapal got a job working for Goldman Sachs. She quickly became disillusioned with the job and decided to get a Juris Doctor,[6] graduating from the University of Chicago Law School in 1988.[1]

Jayapal moved to San Francisco, where she worked as a litigator and started a family, and then to Portland in 1994, working at the law firm Ater Wynne.[7] She then moved to Adidas, leading its legal department. She worked for several Portland-area nonprofits after quitting Adidas.[1]

Jayapal's sister, Pramila, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Washington in 2016. While Susheela was initially reluctant to get involved in politics, she was persuaded to run after Donald Trump took office as president, and won a seat on the Multnomah County Commission in May 2018 with 24,543 votes (61.63%), defeating three other candidates.[8]

Personal life

Jayapal married Bradley Stuart Miller in 1988 and divorced in 2014.[9] She has two children and lives in the Sabin neighborhood of Portland.[10]

Electoral history
2018 Multnomah County Commission District 2 election[11]
Party Candidate Votes %
Nonpartisan Susheela Jayapal 24,543 61.63%
Nonpartisan Maria Garcia 5,883 14.77%
Nonpartisan Bruce Broussard 4,980 12.51%
Nonpartisan Sharon Y. Maxwell 4,336 10.89%
Other Write-ins 81 0.20%
Total votes 39,823 100.00%

References
  1. Salazar, Monica (June 21, 2019). "There Is More Than One Way". The Immigrant Story. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
  2. Mozmuder, Suman (January 4, 2019). "Rep. Pramila Jayapal's Sister Susheela Sworn in as County Commissioner in Oregon". India Abroad. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
  3. Nakamura, Beth (Jan 3, 2019). "Jayapal sworn in as Oregon's first Indian American to hold elected county office". The Oregonian. Archived from the original on 2020-11-15. Retrieved 2020-07-24.
  4. Brunner, Jim (May 16, 2018). "Politics runs in the family: Rep. Pramila Jayapal's sister wins Multnomah County Commission seat". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 2020-07-25. Retrieved 2020-07-24.
  5. "Susheela Jayapal, '88: Former General Counsel at adidas America Elected as a Member of the Board of Commissioners of Multnomah County in Oregon". University of Chicago Law School. May 16, 2018. Archived from the original on December 18, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
  6. "Susheela Jayapal Profile | Portland, OR Lawyer | Martindale.com". www.martindale.com. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  7. Sparling, Zane (Feb 26, 2019). "Susheela Jayapal: New politico settles in on county board". PortlandTribune.com. Archived from the original on 23 December 2022. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  8. "May 15, 2018 Primary Election". Multnomah County. June 1, 2018. Archived from the original on October 21, 2019. Retrieved July 24, 2020.
  9. Sparling, Zane (February 26, 2019). "Susheela Jayapal: New politico settles in on county board". Portland Tribune. Archived from the original on August 30, 2020. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
  10. "Susheela Jayapal". Multnomah County. 19 December 2018. Archived from the original on 16 August 2020. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
  11. "Multnomah County Commissioner - District 2 2018". Our Campaigns. Archived from the original on August 5, 2021. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.