The congressman from the 5th District is Keith Ellison, a Democrat first elected in 2006. Ellison, previously a relatively unknown state legislator, garnered international attention when he became the first Muslim to serve in Congress and the first black representative from Minnesota. Today, he is one of two Muslims in Congress; the other is Democrat Andre Carson of Indiana. Read More
The congressman from the 5th District is Keith Ellison, a Democrat first elected in 2006. Ellison, previously a relatively unknown state legislator, garnered international attention when he became the first Muslim to serve in Congress and the first black representative from Minnesota. Today, he is one of two Muslims in Congress; the other is Democrat Andre Carson of Indiana.
Ellison was raised Catholic in Detroit, the son of a psychiatrist and the third of five boys. (Four became lawyers and the fifth a doctor.) Ellison studied economics at Wayne State University, and it was there that he converted to Sunni Islam. He moved to Minnesota in 1987 to study law at the University of Minnesota, worked in private practice, and ran a nonprofit criminal defense firm while also hosting a public affairs radio show. Ellison won the first of two terms in the state House in 2002.
The retirement of Democratic Rep. Martin Olav Sabo, who had held the seat since 1978, unleashed a torrent of pent-up political ambition. Nearly a dozen Democrats sought the party endorsement at the May 2006 Democratic-Farmer-Labor district convention. But the main contenders were Ellison, former DFL chairman and longtime Sabo aide Mike Erlandson, and former state Sen. Ember Reichgott Junge. Ellison, who strongly opposed the war in Iraq, attracted support from war opponents and key backers of the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone. “I have the passion of a Wellstone and the practicality of a Sabo,” he told convention activists. Ellison easily won the DFL endorsement, but Erlandson and Reichgott Junge competed anyway for the Democratic nomination in a seven-way September 12 primary.
Ellison campaigned on his opposition to the war and support for government-funded universal health care. But he had to overcome a number of unhelpful personal revelations: Unpaid parking tickets and moving violations that led to multiple suspensions of his driver’s license and $25,000 he once owed in back taxes. Most damaging were his ties to the controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic pronouncements. Ellison said his association with the group was limited to the 18 months he spent helping organize the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C., although his writings about Farrakhan were traced back to his law school days. Ellison reached out to local Jewish leaders, insisting that he’d been unaware of the group’s anti-Semitic views. Despite the personal baggage, Ellison won the primary with 41%, followed by Erlandson with 31% and Reichgott Junge with 21%.
Heavily favored in the general election, Ellison faced two third-party candidates and Republican Alan Fine, who described Ellison as “an embarrassment to our district, our state, our country, and our world.” But Ellison won with 56% of vote, while Fine and Independence Party candidate Tammy Lee each won 21%. Controversy followed Ellison after the election. A conservative commentator stirred up opposition to Ellison’s plan to take the oath of office with the Quran, rather than the Bible. In a politically adept move, Ellison borrowed a Quran from the Library of Congress that was once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
Ellison quickly established a strongly liberal voting record and was elected co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in 2010. He has continued to be a frequent target for conservatives. Judson Phillips, founder of the Nashville-based Tea Party Nation, called for his defeat in 2010 because of his religious beliefs. Freshman Republican Allen West of Florida in January 2011 called Ellison “the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.” But Ellison also has won recognition for his legislative work. In Washingtonian magazine’s anonymous 2010 survey of Capitol Hill staffers, he took third in the “surprise standout” category.
On the Financial Services Committee, Ellison has challenged predatory lending practices and foreclosures by credit card and mortgage companies, which he said “have torn holes in the fabric of neighborhoods” in Minneapolis and elsewhere. In 2007, the House passed the Anti-Predatory Lending Act, which included provisions he helped craft. He also added to the 2009 credit card overhaul bill a provision to stop companies from raising rates on people with unrelated debt problems.
When new Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., announced plans to explore al-Qaeda’s attempts to radicalize American Muslims in 2011, Ellison approached King and offered to show that Muslims had thwarted several plots by reporting them to law enforcement officials. In March 2011, he broke into tears as he testified before the King panel, recounting the death of a Muslim-American firefighter on September 11. “The best defense against extreme ideologies is social inclusion and civic engagement,” Ellison said. “I fear these hearings may undermine our efforts in this direction.”
In January 2009, he was one of 22 House members, all Democrats, who voted “present” on a resolution recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza. In December 2008, he became the first member of Congress to make the Hajj pilgrimage to the Muslim holy city of Mecca, later describing it as a “transformative” experience. He has expressed interest in promoting economic ties between his state and Saudi Arabia as a means of creating jobs at home. When President Obama called for a new beginning in relations between the United States and the Muslim world in June 2009, Ellison described it as a positive first step.
In 2008 and 2010, Ellison was re-elected easily.
