Rashida Tlaib
Rashida Harbi Tlaib 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 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.
Tlaib graduated 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.
Early life and education
Rashida Harbi was born in Detroit on July 24, 1976, the eldest of 14 children born to working-class Palestinian immigrants. Her mother was born in Beit Ur El Foka, near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Her father was born in Beit Hanina, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem. He moved first to Nicaragua, then to Detroit. He worked on an assembly line in a Ford Motor Company plant. As the eldest, Tlaib played a role in raising her siblings while her parents worked.Tlaib attended elementary school at Harms, Bennett Elementary, and Phoenix Academy. She graduated from Southwestern High School in Southwest Detroit in 1994. Tlaib received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Wayne State University in 1998 and her Juris Doctor from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in 2004. Tlaib was admitted to the bar in the state of Michigan in 2007.
Michigan House of Representatives
Tlaib began her political career in 2004 when she interned with State Representative Steve Tobocman. When Tobocman became Majority Floor Leader in 2007, he hired Tlaib to his staff.In 2008 Tobocman encouraged Tlaib to run for his seat, which he was vacating due to term limits. The urban district is 40% Hispanic, 25% African-American, 30% non-Hispanic white Americans, and 2% Arab American. Tlaib faced a crowded primary that included several Latinos, including former State Representative Belda Garza. She emerged victorious, carrying 44% of the vote in the eight-way Democratic primary and winning the general election with over 90% of the vote.
In 2010, Tlaib faced a primary election challenge from Jim Czachorowski in his first bid for office. Tlaib picked up 85% of the vote to Czachorowski's 15%, and won the general election with 92% of the vote against Republican challenger Darrin Daigle.
In 2012, Tlaib won reelection to the Michigan House in the newly redrawn 6th district. Tlaib faced fellow incumbent Maureen Stapleton in the Democratic primary and defeated her, 52%–45%. She won the general election with 92% of the vote against Republican nominee Darrin Daigle. Tlaib could not run for the Michigan House a fourth time in 2014 because of term limits; instead, she ran for the Michigan Senate, losing to incumbent Senator Virgil Smith Jr. in the 2014 Democratic primary, 50%–42%.
Tlaib is the first Muslim woman to serve as a member of the Michigan State Legislature. She is also the second Muslim woman to serve in a state legislature nationwide.
After leaving the state legislature, Tlaib worked at Sugar Law Center, a Detroit nonprofit that provides free legal representation for workers.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
2018 special
In 2018, Tlaib announced her candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in Michigan's 13th congressional district. Longtime Representative John Conyers had resigned from Congress in December 2017 due to a sexual harassment scandal. Tlaib filed in both the Democratic primary in the special election for the balance of Conyers's 27th term and in the general election for a full two-year term.As of July 16, 2018, Tlaib had raised $893,030 in funds, more than her five opponents in the August 7 Democratic primary. Tlaib, as a member of the Justice Democrats, made a guest appearance on the political interview show Rebel HQ of the progressive media network The Young Turks.
In the Democratic primary for the special election, Tlaib finished second to Detroit City Council president Brenda Jones, who received 32,727 votes to Tlaib's 31,084. Bill Wild, mayor of Westland, received 13,152 votes and Ian Conyers, the great-nephew of former Congressman Conyers, took fourth with 9,740.
2018 general
In the Democratic primary for the general election, Tlaib defeated five other candidates. She received 27,803 votes, or 31.2%.Tlaib faced no major-party opposition in the November 2018 general election, although Brenda Jones mounted an eleventh-hour write-in bid. On Election Day, Tlaib became the first Palestinian-American woman to be elected to Congress.
2020
Brenda Jones challenged Tlaib in the 2020 Democratic primary. Tlaib won, 66%–34%, spending over $2,000,000 in campaign funds to Jones's $140,000.2022
In 2022, following redistricting, Tlaib sought reelection in Michigan's newly drawn 12th congressional district. She won the Democratic primary with 64% of the vote over three challengers, and the general election with 71% of the vote over Republican Steven Elliott and Gary Walkowicz of the Working Class Party.2024
In 2024, Tlaib was unopposed in the Democratic primary. In the general election she won a third term in Congress with over 69% of the vote, defeating Republican nominee James Hooper, Green Party nominee Brenda K. Sanders, and Working Class Party nominee Gary Walkowicz.Tenure
Along with fellow Democrat Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Tlaib is one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. She took the congressional oath of office on January 3, 2019, swearing in on an English-language translation of the Quran. She wore a thawb, a traditional embroidered Arab dress, to the swearing-in ceremony. This inspired a number of Palestinian and Palestinian-American women to share pictures on social media with the hashtag #TweetYourThobe.Ban from entering Israel
On August 15, 2019, Israel announced that Tlaib and her colleague Ilhan Omar would be denied entry into the country. According to The Times of Israel, Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said Israel would not "allow those who deny our right to exist in this world to enter" and called it a "very justified decision". It was reported that President Trump had pressed Benjamin Netanyahu's government to make such a decision. The next day, Israeli authorities granted a request by Tlaib to visit her relatives in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on humanitarian grounds and under certain restrictions on political statements. Tlaib declined to go, saying that she did not want to make the trip "under these oppressive conditions". The Israeli interior ministry stated that Tlaib had previously agreed to abide by any rules their government had set in exchange for being permitted to visit the country, and accused her of making a "provocative request aimed at bashing the State of Israel".Campaign finance investigation
On November 14, 2019, the House Ethics Committee announced that it was investigating whether Tlaib used congressional campaign money for personal expenses in violation of House rules. In August 2020 the committee directed Tlaib to reimburse her campaign $10,800, stating that Tlaib has an "obligation to act in accordance with the strict technical requirements of federal campaign laws and regulations, including the restrictions on personal use of campaign funds".Censure
On October 26, 2023, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene proposed H.Res 829, which would have censured Tlaib for her criticism of Israel and for "leading an insurrection" after she participated in a protest at the Capitol. The resolution did not pass, with all Democrats and nearly two dozen Republicans voting against it over concerns that the language was "too incendiary". Tlaib called the resolution "deeply Islamophobic" and said it attacked "peaceful Jewish anti-war advocates".On November 6, Tlaib issued a press release regarding Republicans' proposed censure resolutions against her. Tlaib said the proposed censure resolutions distorted her positions and were "filled with obvious lies". She added that she had "repeatedly denounced the horrific targeting and killing of civilians by Hamas and the Israeli government" and that she supported a ceasefire to end the conflict. Tlaib said the phrase "from the river to the sea" was "an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate."
The House of Representatives censured Tlaib on November 7, 2023. Representative Rich McCormick's censure resolution accused her of "promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel." The resolution stated that the phrase "from the river to the sea" is "a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea". 212 Republicans and 22 Democrats voted for the resolution, and 188 representatives against it. During the debate on the House floor, Tlaib said that she wanted a ceasefire and "The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me". Representative Brad Schneider said that Tlaib was "trying to gaslight the world" by defending the "river to the sea" slogan and voted for the resolution, while Representative Ken Buck argued that it was not Congress's job "to censure somebody because we don't agree with them".
On November 8, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned Tlaib's use of the slogan "from the river to the sea".