The congressman from the 7th District is André Carson, who won the seat in a March 2008 special election to succeed his grandmother, Julia Carson, who died in office after representing the district for nearly 11 years. He is only the second Muslim to be elected to Congress; the other is Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat. Read More

The congressman from the 7th District is André Carson, who won the seat in a March 2008 special election to succeed his grandmother, Julia Carson, who died in office after representing the district for nearly 11 years. He is only the second Muslim to be elected to Congress; the other is Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat.

As a child, André Carson was interested in the priesthood, and he studied religion. He also had an artistic side. He wrote poetry as a young man and performed as a rap artist. But his career took him into law enforcement. He got a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice management from Concordia University and a master’s degree in business management from Indiana Wesleyan. Carson spent nine years as a plainclothes officer of the Indiana Excise Police, which enforces alcohol and tobacco laws. “I loved law enforcement,” he told Esquire magazine in 2010. “But this job sure beats sitting and waiting for something bad to go down at three in the morning.” He recalled that his political interest began in 1984, at age 10, when he attended the Democratic convention in San Francisco. There, he heard civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson speak. Carson said that his thinking was transformed by reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and he attended Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March in 1995. In August 2007, at age 32, he won a seat on the Indianapolis City Council, his first elected office.

After Julia Carson died in December 2007 following multiple and lengthy illnesses, her grandson faced significant opposition for the Democratic nomination in the special election to fill the remainder of Carson’s term. At the January 2008 Democratic caucus, he won 223 of the 439 votes; state Rep. David Orentlicher, a lawyer and doctor, got 123 votes; and Marion County Treasurer Michael Rodman came in third with 27 votes. Against Republican state Rep. Jon Elrod, a young lawyer, Carson received extensive assistance from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. On issues, he called for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, endorsed tax cuts for working families, and said that companies should have incentives to keep them from sending jobs overseas. Elrod emphasized aid to small businesses and tougher enforcement of immigration laws, and he called for an end to federal spending earmarks. Carson won, 54%-43%.

Meanwhile, Carson had to continue campaigning for a May primary to determine the winner of a full term. That field included Orentlicher, former state Health Commissioner Woodrow Myers, and state Rep. Carolene Mays. Running as the incumbent this time and with an endorsement from presidential candidate Barack Obama, Carson won the primary with 47% of the vote to 24% for Myers, 20% for Orentlicher, and 8% for Mays. In the contest for a full term, Elrod won the GOP nomination. But he soon withdrew and ran unsuccessfully to retain his seat in the state House. Carson faced minimal opposition then and again in 2010.

In the House, Carson has established a liberal voting record. But one of his role models is Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, and he tries to occasionally lunch with conservative GOP Rep. Mike Pence. One year after taking office, The Indianapolis Star described him as “relentlessly positive and seriously hardworking … a solid U.S. representative.” He got a seat on the Financial Services Committee and soon found himself embroiled in the debate over the $700 billion bailout of the financial markets in fall 2008. After initially opposing the bailout bill, he switched his position to vote in favor after Obama encouraged him to support it.

In 2009, Carson included a provision in a predatory lending bill to ensure information on foreclosure rules is provided to low-income, elderly, and minority home owners. He also introduced a bill letting newly released prisoners have their disability and Medicaid benefits reinstated and another measure to require post-bankruptcy carmakers to cover all current and future claims over defective vehicles. Before the final vote on the health care overhaul in March 2010, he drew national attention by contending that angry protesters outside the Capitol hurled racial epithets at him and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leader of the civil rights movement. At home, he worked with Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., to have the Housing and Urban Development Department block the sale of a notorious and deteriorating Indianapolis apartment complex from one out-of-state owner to another.