Rashida Tlaib DEMDemocrat

Rashida Harbi Tlaib (tə-LEEB; born July 24, 1976) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the U.S. representative for Michigan's 12th congressional district. 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. 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. Tlaib was admitted to the bar in the state of Michigan in 2007. She began her political career in 2004 when she interned with State Representative Steve Tobocman, who hired her to his staff when he became majority floor leader in 2007, and encouraged her to run for his seat the next year. She did so, and won the election. A member of the Democratic Party, Tlaib represented the 6th and 12th districts in the Michigan House of Representatives. She was the first Muslim woman to serve in Michigan's legislature. In 2018, she won the Democratic nomination and the general election for the United States House of Representatives in Michigan's 13th congressional district.