Samantha Sencer-Mura is an American politician serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2023. She is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) and represents District 63A in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, which includes parts of Minneapolis in Hennepin County.
Born on February 2, 1989, Sencer-Mura is a fourth-generation Japanese-American who was raised in Minneapolis. She attended South High School and her father, David Mura, is a poet and playwright. Her grandparents were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II.
Sencer-Mura earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in social justice and critical theory from Occidental College and a Master of Education in school leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She began her career as a teacher at Citizen Schools in New York City and later worked as a coordinator at Safe Passages and community schools director of United for Success Academy in Oakland, California.
In 2017, Sencer-Mura returned to Minneapolis to join 826 MSP, a nonprofit after-school program, as executive director. She was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2022, running for an open seat created by legislative redistricting and the retirement of 11-term DFL incumbent Jim Davnie. She is the first Japanese-American elected to the state legislature.
In the House, Sencer-Mura serves on the Agriculture Finance and Policy, Education Finance, Workforce Development Finance and Policy, and Transportation Finance and Policy Committees. She is a member of the House People of Color and Indigenous (POCI) Caucus and the Minnesota Asian and Pacific (MAP) Caucus.
During the 2023 session, Sencer-Mura sponsored anti-hate crime legislation that would provide money to better track bias crimes and fund law enforcement trainings, citing anti-Asian backlash related to COVID-19’s origins. She also wrote a bill that would require Minnesota high schools offer an ethnic studies course, and sponsored a transit safety bill after an 87-year-old woman in her district was injured while using public transit.
