Minneapolis man to become first US Muslim in Congress
Keith Ellison, a Democratic state politician and lawyer, has become the first Muslim elected to the US Congress.
On the campaign trail in his urban Minneapolis district, Ellison, 43, talked little about his religious background, focusing instead on his call for an immediate US withdrawal from Iraq and his support for single-payer healthcare.
He broke from more conservative Muslims by favouring gay rights and abortion rights.
Ellison, who also became the first non-white elected to Congress from Minnesota, said his campaign united labour, minority communities and peace activists. “We were able to bring in Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists,” he said. “We brought in everybody.”
Hayat Hassan, 30, a single mother and a Muslim, said she voted for Ellison because of his positions on healthcare and education.
“I didn’t even know he was a Muslim until one of his campaign workers told me,” she said.
The seat was thrown open when long-time Democratic Representative Martin Sabo said he would retire after 28 years. Yesterday, Ellison beat Republican Alan Fine and the Independence Party’s Tammy Lee.
Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society, compared Ellison’s victory to Edward Brooke’s election in 1966 as the first black US senator since the Reconstruction Era in the 1860s and 1870s after the American Civil War.
Ellison’s campaign had to deal with reports of overdue parking tickets, late campaign finance reports and unpaid taxes. He also faced questions about anti-Semitism because of past ties with the Nation of Islam, a black Muslim group led by the confrontational Louis Farrakhan.
Ellison, a criminal defence attorney who converted to Islam as a college student, denounced Farrakhan and won the endorsement of a Minneapolis Jewish newspaper.
