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Minn. Lawmaker 1st Muslim in Congress
By The Associated Press
November 09, 2006
Keith Ellison never ran on his
religion—or away from it. Ellison, a state lawmaker and lawyer, has become the
first Muslim elected to Congress, and the first nonwhite elected to Congress
from Minnesota.
On the campaign trail, Ellison,
43, talked little about his religious background, focusing instead on his call
for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from
Iraq and his support for single-payer
healthcare. He broke from more conservative Muslims by favoring gay rights and
abortion rights.
Ellison said his campaign united
labor, minority communities and peace activists. "We were able to bring in
Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists," he said. "We brought in
everybody."
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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
longtime Rep. Martin Sabo said he would retire after 28
years.
Mahdi Bray, executive director of
the Muslim American Society, compared Ellison's victory to Edward Brooke's
election in 1966 as the first black senator since
Reconstruction.
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-defense
attorney who converted to Islam as a college student, denounced Farrakhan and
won the endorsement of a Minneapolis Jewish newspaper.
(AP)
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