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Tlaib.. First Muslim Woman to Preside Over House Floor


Fri 17 May 2019 | 07:33 AM
Yassmine Elsayed

Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Muslim woman to presided over the House floor; she expressed her deep pride with the move.

Proceedings on the House floor are led by the speaker of the House or people presiding on her behalf from the speaker's party. House freshmen, like Tlaib, have been working slowly into the rotation recently of learning how to preside over the floor.

Tlaib told CNN ahead of the moment that her family would be tuning into C-SPAN to watch from home. "I'm excited, my family's excited," the Democratic Rep. said.

She tweeted about the experience following presiding over the floor, noting, "Not bad for a girl from Detroit that didn't speak English when I started school & first in my family to graduate high school & college."

Her turn on Wednesday leading the proceedings of the House of Representatives came months after she, along with Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, became the first Muslim women to join the US Congress.

According to CNN, Tlaib has made waves since joining Congress, attracting attention for her efforts to impeach President Donald Trump and recently finding herself under fire from top Republicans and Israel's ambassador to the United Nations for comments about Israel and the Holocaust that she and top Democrats said were misconstrued for political ends.

In her comments, Tlaib did appear to make ahistorical claims about Palestinians who were oppressed to provide a "safe haven" for Jews fleeing Europe ahead of the establishment of the modern state of Israel.