Welcome to Amped Up. This is your host Ryan Knight and our guest today is

Shahid Bhutar who is running for Congress to replace Nancy Pelosi in California's

12th District. Shahid, welcome to Amped Up.

I'm so stoked to be here.

Thanks for having me, Ryan.

Yeah, since this is your first time on the podcast,

why don't you give our listeners a little bit

about your backstory and why you're running for Congress.

Sure. I'm an immigrant to the United States. I was born in the UK. My family is

originally from Pakistan. I grew up in rural Missouri and had a chance to spend 10 years in

Chicago going to night school while working full-time to get my undergrad degree.

That gave me a chance to come out to San Francisco 20 years ago,

and ever since then I've been fighting across the country

at the Van Gert of the Progressive Left

to advance policies from marriage equality

for same-sex couples, campaign finance reform, peace and justice, human rights, and particularly limits on government surveillance.

That's been one of the focuses of my work over the last decade.

And I'm running for Congress. This is my second run. In 2018,

I challenged Nancy Pelosi for her seat representing San Francisco in Washington.

I got as many votes as Alexandria-O-Kcasio Cortez did in our respective primaries that cycle and I'm back this year to finish the job.

We've won the jungle primary alongside Pelosi two months ago so that makes me the first Democrat to ever have the chance to

confront Pelosi in a November election and with the support of the 30,000 San Francisco

...