Dr. Arvind Venkat announces run for North Hills state House seat

A newly vacant state house district in Pittsburgh’s North Hills has its first candidate. Dr. Arvind Venkat announced his Democratic candidacy on Thursday for Pennsylvania’s 30th State House District.

Venkat is an emergency room doctor at Allegheny Health Network, serving as the core ER faculty at Allegheny General Hospital. He has lived in McCandless for the last 15 years, with his wife and three children.

“I became an ER doc because I knew that I would be caring for any patient that walked through the door at any time, no questions asked,” Venkat said in a release. “There’s no such thing as a Democratic or Republican heart attack. I’m running for the State House because we need leaders in Harrisburg who can put aside partisan differences and deal with the crises at hand.”

District 30 is currently served by state Rep. Lori Mizgorski, R-Shaler. But her home was drawn out of the new District 30 lines that were finalized recently by the state Supreme Court. Mizgorski is now running for state Senate instead, leaving District 30 vacant.

Its new boundaries consist of municipalities in Allegheny County’s North Hills including Ben Avon, Ben Avon Heights, Emsworth, Franklin Park, Kilbuck, McCandless, Ohio Township, and parts of Hampton. The District 30 will be a true swing district, with voter preference split nearly 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, according to Dave’s Redistricting App, a tool that analyzes legislative districts.

Venkat said he wants to focus his campaign on improving local infrastructure, bolstering public services like EMS and firefighters, and making sure health care and accessible and affordable. His campaign website highlights the issues climate change is bringing to the district, including flooding. He says there should be more green space to mitigate storm water issues. He criticized efforts to restrict voting access.

A graduate of Yale School of Medicine, Venkat served as past president of the Pennsylvania College of Emergency Physicians and currently serves on the board of the McCandless-Franklin Park Ambulance Authority.

His parents immigrated from India. If elected, Venkat would become the only state representative of South Asian descent, as well as the only physician, in the legislature.

He has been endorsed by several Democratic officials in the region, including U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, state Sen. Lindsey Williams, Franklin Park Borough Councilmember Uday Palled.