Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib is the first Muslim woman elected to Congress

By Melissa Locker

Rashida Tlaib just made history. In a particularly poignant victory, the Democrat just won Michigan’s 13th District to become the first Muslim woman elected to Congress.

Tlaib may be getting used to being a trailblazer. In 2008, she became the first Muslim woman ever to serve in Michigan’s state legislature, serving in the Michigan House from 2009 until 2014. Now, she is one of more than 90 American Muslims running for office this year.

Her campaign was backed by Justice for Democrats, the group that backed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her upset win in New York in June, and her progressive values led Politico to call her “the Left’s way forward.” Tlaib will now head to Washington to fill a seat held for years by former Rep. John Conyers before he resigned last year amid allegations of sexual harassment.

Update: Joining Tlaib in the U.S. House of Representatives is Ilhan Omar, who came to the U.S. as a Somalian refugee when she was 12, and went on to become the first Somali-American Muslim to ever become a lawmaker when she was elected to the Minnesota’s House of Representatives in 2016. Now Omar is headed to Washington, one of the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress, and the nation’s first Somali-American representative.

Omar is filling the seat vacated by Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. Ellison is leaving Congress in a bid to become Minnesota attorney general. The only other Muslim to serve in Congress is Indiana Democratic Rep. Andre Carson.

 
 
 

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