Kumar P. Barve

Kumar P. Barve (Marathi: कुमार बर्वे ) (born September 8, 1958 in Schenectady, New York is an American politician. He is a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, representing District 17 in Montgomery County, which includes the cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg. He was the first Indian-American to be elected to a state legislature in the United States, and served from 2002 to 2015 as the Majority Leader of the House of Delegates. In 2015, he was appointed to chair the House Environment and Transportation Committee, which oversees transportion, the environment, agriculture, ethics, and housing and real property law. His legislative work has focused largely on protecting the environment, improving health care, and the promotion of the high-tech industry in Maryland. He sponsored both the 1995 Health Access Act that place limits on HMOs for the first time and legislation that created the Technology Development Corporation of Maryland. He is running for Congress in 2016 in Maryland's 8th congressional district.