Rashida Tlaib

Details

Party Affiliation

Democratic

In Office Since

Jan 1, 2019

Organization

United States Federal Government

Biography

Rashida Harbi Tlaib ( tə-LEEB; née Elabed; born July 24, 1976) is an American lawyer and politician serving as a U.S. representative from Michigan since 2019, representing the state's 12th congressional district since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress and one of the first two Muslim women (along with Ilhan Omar) elected to Congress. Tlaib was born to working-class Palestinian immigrants in Detroit in 1976 and is the oldest of 14 children. She graduated from Southwestern High School in Detroit in 1994, from Wayne State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1998, and from Thomas M. Cooley Law School with a Juris Doctor in 2004. She was admitted to the bar in the state of Michigan in 2007. Tlaib's political career began in 2004, when she interned with State Representative Steve Tobocman, who hired her to his staff when he became majority floor leader in 2007. He encouraged her to run for his seat the next year. She did so, and won the 2008 election, becoming the first Muslim woman to serve in the state legislature. Tlaib represented the 6th and 12th districts in the Michigan House of Representatives. In 2018, Tlaib won the Democratic nomination and the general election for the United States House of Representatives in Michigan's 13th congressional district. She and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the first female members of Democratic Socialists of America to serve in Congress. Tlaib is a member of The Squad, an informal group of U.S. representatives on the left wing of the Democratic Party. As a U.S. representative, Tlaib has been a vocal critic of both the Trump and Biden administrations. She has argued in favor of abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and voted to impeach President Donald Trump in both 2019 and 2021. Tlaib has been sharply critical of Israel, viewing it as an apartheid state. She has called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel; she supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. On November 7, 2023, Tlaib was censured by the House of Representatives in response to her public statements following the October 7 attacks on Israel. She has criticized U.S. support of Israel in the Gaza war.

From the English Wikipedia article “Rashida Tlaib”, available under CC BY-SA.