SAM’S PRIORITIES
On the Issues
Sam is a democracy reformer and scientist with a track record of fixing our broken political system, both in New Jersey and nationwide. He is the right candidate to stop the damage to our government and build a system we deserve.
Sam has used science to fix bugs in democracy. In New Jersey, he was a key witness in the lawsuit that ended the county line, a deceptive ballot design that freezes out newcomers to politics. He is the founder of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project at Princeton University, whose report-card system has exposed gerrymanders nationwide. Sam will help pass voting rights laws that protect the rights of all Americans, regardless of party or race.
Sam is also an award-winning medical scientist who has conducted research on brain development and autism. He has co-founded a company to use AI for the diagnosis of autism and ADHD. Sam understands the importance of federal support for research and evidence-based public health.
As the child of immigrants who left China in 1949 and came to the United States in 1962, Sam knows that immigrants make America stronger. Immigrants from all nations deserve a chance to build a better life for their families. Sam loves the diversity of New Jersey's 12th District and will represent every community at a time when the rights of all are under threat.
Abolish ICE and restore the rule of law
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a rogue agency that must be stopped. In the short term, its budget should be zeroed out. In the long term, ICE should be replaced with a new agency that will take a thoughtful and humane approach to enforcing immigration and customs laws in our country.
ICE was only formed in 2003 as part of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Congress must start over, using its Article I power to zero out ICE's funding and start from scratch. ICE has detained many thousands of innocents, leading to suffering and even death. Innocents have died in custody, and masked ICE agents have killed people in the streets. Recent events in Minneapolis and around the nation have made clear that this agency is out of control. In the face of this, the only rational choice is to abolish ICE.
Rational handling of immigration and border security is within reach of the next Congress. Comprehensive immigration reform has come to the brink of passage before, but failed due to partisanship. National revulsion at the events of 2025 and 2026 can set the stage for a better environment for new legislation.
The misdeeds of ICE also reflect a broader breakdown in the rule of law by the federal government. Over and over, Congress has the power to slow or block illegal actions, ranging from the abolition of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to the sabotage of great institutions like the National Institutes of Health. Relying on good faith and tradition has failed. The system must be remade with a stronger Congress.
We aspire to be a nation in which all are equal under the law. Over and over again, this promise is being broken. Congress must reassert itself as the primary branch of government and use all its powers, including the power of the purse, to stem the tide of authoritarianism and ensure that we are governed as a free people, not ruled by a king.
Protect Medical Research and Public Health
American medical research is the envy of the world. From cancer treatments to vaccines, breakthroughs made here save lives everywhere. But this legacy is now at risk because of mindless attacks on science and medicine—cuts to research funding, ideological interference, and the dismantling of agencies that protect public health.
I know this fight personally. My sister is autistic, and growing up with her shaped my career as a neuroscientist. My research lab at Princeton studies the biology of autism, and our discoveries led to a new way to diagnose autism earlier using AI and smartphones. I co-founded a startup to bring that technology to families everywhere. I've seen what federally funded research can do—and I've seen what we lose when politicians attack it.
The attacks on science must stop. In Congress, I will fight cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and climate, physical, and social science research. I will stop the illegal bureaucratic tricks, straight from the Project 2025 playbook, that are wrecking American research from the inside. And I will make sure Congress exercises its full constitutional authority to restore American science to its rightful place as a global leader.
Vaccines are central to this fight. They are among the greatest medical triumphs in human history, and undermining vaccine development puts millions of lives at risk. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others are spreading dangerous misinformation that has already cost lives. I will sponsor legislation to restore scientific integrity to the FDA and CDC, and ensure that vaccine policy is driven by evidence, not conspiracy theories.
Learn more: What actually causes autism - and what doesn't | The truth about Tylenol and autism
End Gerrymandering
For over a decade, I've been one of America's leading voices against gerrymandering—the practice by which politicians handpick their voters by manipulating district lines. I started this work in 2012, using statistics and law to expose how both parties rig elections. My methods caught the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court: Chief Justice John Roberts cited my work in a major redistricting opinion. Unfortunately, an ideologically captured Court refused to act—but the tools we built have changed the fight nationwide.
Since then, I founded the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan effort that grades redistricting maps across all 50 states. My team and I have worked directly in North Carolina, Michigan, and New Jersey to bring about fairer maps. We've proven what works: independent citizen commissions that take map-drawing power away from politicians and put it in the hands of ordinary voters. Our research shows these commissions are the single most effective way to end gerrymandering for good.
On my first day in Congress, I will be a national leader on this issue—not learning the ropes, but introducing legislation to require independent redistricting commissions nationwide. Voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around. After the wave of democratic malfeasance we've witnessed over the past year—and the past 30 years—we cannot wait any longer.
But gerrymandering is just one symptom of a broader breakdown in voting rights. In Congress, I will help craft a new Voting Rights Act that protects minority voting power, combats voter suppression, and updates our laws for a system that is badly broken. Democracy reform isn't a side issue—it's the issue that makes every other issue possible.
Read more about Sam's pioneering work in repairing gerrymandering at Fixing Bugs in Democracy.
Restore the Balance of Power
A deep illness has brought our democracy to the brink of disaster. The founders envisioned Congress as the most powerful branch of government, with all three branches - Congress, the President, and the courts - working in balance, each able to check the others. Instead, the executive has run amok. The abolition of USAID. The wrecking of government by DOGE. Cuts to research. Lawless raids by ICE. These are all symptoms of a Congress that refuses to step up, and a Supreme Court captured by an extreme ideological fringe.
I understand this crisis because I've spent years fighting entrenched power. In New Jersey, my expert testimony helped abolish the county line, a ballot trick that handed power to party bosses and gave insider candidates a nearly 40-point advantage. In Maine, I helped preserve ranked-choice voting by persuading a Republican-appointed federal judge that this reform was constitutional. I know how to use law and evidence to hold the powerful accountable.
In Congress, I will fight for both short-term and long-term repairs to our democracy. In the short term, we must stop the damage and hold lawbreakers accountable. The House has powerful tools it has refused to use: cutting off funding, subpoena power, and inherent contempt of Congress. I will push to deploy all of them. But stopping the bleeding is not enough. We need long-term reforms so this never happens again. That means laws holding the Supreme Court to the same ethical standards as every other court. Laws that override the disastrous end of Chevron deference and restore the Voting Rights Act. And the biggest solution of all: expanding the Supreme Court so that future presidents can rebalance a Court that has abandoned its purpose.
The Court should work for the people, and uphold what the 14th Amendment originally promised: an instrument of equal justice under law. Instead, it has become a tool of rule by an extremist faction. We need to take our republic back.