Raj Mukherji

New Jersey Assemblymember | United States

New Jersey State Assembly Member (man) Mukherji represents the 33rd Legislative District (Hudson County) in the New Jersey Legislature. Raj sits on the Budget Committee, responsible for crafting the state budget (approximately $33 billion in FY 2015), as well as the Commerce and Economic Development and Labor Committees. He is the only South Asian legislator presently serving in the state, the only former Marine presently serving in the New Jersey General Assembly, and the first Indian-Bengali state legislator in the United States. He was named the Assembly’s “Humane Legislator of the Year” recipient for 2015 by the Humane Society and 2015 Legislator of the Year by the NJ Law Enforcement Police Officers Brotherhood. Assemblyman Mukherji was also named a 2015 honoree of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hudson County for championing the expansion of teens’ access to mental health services, and he received the 2015 Legislator Award from the NAACP for his civil rights advocacy.

Raj is a former Deputy Mayor of Jersey City and former Sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserve. In the private sector, he is a lawyer and healthcare investor and was previously an information technology CEO. He had founded an Internet consulting and software development company while in middle school, grew it, and later sold it to a larger technology company to enlist in the Marines two weeks after 9/11 at age 17. He was also a founder and Managing Partner of a public affairs firm that he grew into the state’s third largest lawyer-lobbying firm.

Raj had enrolled in an early college program at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and eventually earned a bachelor’s degree from Thomas Edison State University, an individualized Master of Liberal Arts focused on national security from the University of Pennsylvania, and a law degree (Juris Doctor), cum laude, from Seton Hall Law School, which he attended on a Chancellor’s Scholarship. He supported himself through high school, college, and grad school as an emancipated minor when economic circumstances forced his parents to return to their native country India.