Meet The Woman Determined To Change Congress

RASHIDA TLAIB HAS HER new commute timed: It takes about an hour and a half to fly from Washington, D.C., to her hometown of Detroit.

- Celeste Katz

The pomp and polished marble of the U.S. Capitol might seem a world away from Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, one of the poorest in the nation. Yet when Tlaib—who won her primary in August and had no Republican opponent in November, making her a lock to become the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress—explained to her two boys that she was going to start spending “three to four days a week in D.C. to change the world,” Adam, 13, erased any worries. “It’s OK, Mama, ’cause we can FaceTime,” he told her. Her younger son, Yousif, seven, was equally supportive: “He really does think I’m going to take care of Trump, like, give him a time-out. He’s like, ‘Mommy’s going to fix it,’ ” she says with a laugh. “I’ve always been the fixer in my family, and I think my kids see that in me as well.”

The “fixer” role dates back to the responsibilities she shouldered while growing up, when Tlaib, now 42, was like a “third parent” in a big working-class family—she was the eldest of 14 children of Palestinian immigrants. In 2008 she became the first Muslim woman elected to the Michigan legislature, serving three terms. But Tlaib says getting into politics back then, and running for Congress a decade later, wasn’t about making history. It was about making change and a sense of obligation she says is grounded in her Muslim heritage. “There’s a saying in Islam,” she says. “After you take care of your home, your family, you have a duty to take care of your community.”

That sense of duty now encompasses the 700,000 or so people of Tlaib’s House district—and in Washington she plans to fight for them to have access to quality health care, thriving schools, good jobs, and clean drinking water.