US 2020 Elections See New State Representatives With Problematic Ties

A group of US Mus­lim advo­ca­cy groups that includes the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR) has announced more than half of all Mus­lim-Amer­i­can can­di­dates for pub­lic office who ran in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion won their races. Accord­ing to a Novem­ber 2020 arti­cle by Turk­ish state media:

Novem­ber 7, 2020 The Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR), Jet­pac and MPow­er Change said of the 110 Mus­lim-Amer­i­cans who ran for a vari­ety of posts, 57 emerged or are pro­ject­ed to emerge vic­to­ri­ous fol­low­ing the Nov. 3 gen­er­al elec­tion. The indi­vid­u­als ran in com­pe­ti­tions that spanned 24 states and Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and the num­ber of Mus­lim can­di­dates in the elec­tion is the high­est the groups have tracked since 2016. Of the 57 vic­tors, sev­en made his­to­ry as the first Mus­lims elect­ed to their respec­tive state offices.

Read the rest here.

CAIR sub­se­quent­ly pub­lished a list iden­ti­fy­ing new­ly elect­ed offi­cials that includes the fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als elect­ed to State Leg­is­la­tures with var­i­ous ties to prob­lem­at­ic groups:

• Michi­gan State Leg­is­la­ture mem­ber Abra­ham Aiyash, who served as pres­i­dent of the Michi­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty Mus­lim Stu­dent Association.

• New York State Assem­bly mem­ber Zohran Mam­dani, the founder of a New York chap­ter of the Stu­dents for Jus­tice in Pales­tine, a pro-Pales­tin­ian activism group described by one anti-Semi­tism expert as fos­ter­ing “an aggres­sive anti-Semit­ic atmos­phere on campus.”

• Ako Abdul-Samad, re-elect­ed to the Iowa state leg­is­la­ture’s 35th dis­trict. Abdul-Samad has act­ed as chair­man of the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Alliance (AMA), a Mus­lim advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion tied to the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• Iman Jodeh, the first Mus­lim and Arab woman elect­ed to the Col­orado State Leg­is­la­ture who in Novem­ber 2020 par­tic­i­pat­ed in a vir­tu­al high-lev­el con­fer­ence of the Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP), a Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy group with strong ties to both the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and to the Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture in the US.

All of the above are mem­bers of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

In Novem­ber 2020, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that 27-year-old CAIR board mem­ber Mau­ree Turn­er had been elect­ed to the Okla­homa state legislature.

Oth­er recent GIOR report­ing on CAIR and the US elec­tions has included:

• A Novem­ber 2020 report that CAIR has issued a state­ment con­grat­u­lat­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden on his vic­to­ry, vow­ing to hold the forth­com­ing admin­is­tra­tion account­able on Mus­lim inclu­sion and civ­il rights issues.

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that CAIR was part of a coali­tion of Mus­lim and Arab groups tied to the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood that launched a vot­er reg­is­tra­tion dri­ve head­ed by indi­vid­u­als strong­ly opposed to Don­ald Trump.

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that CAIR was part of a group of Amer­i­can Mus­lim advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions tied to the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood that con­duct­ed a pre-elec­tion “Mus­lims In Amer­i­ca Pol­i­cy Poll,” sur­vey­ing 1,500 peo­ple in 45 states who were asked to pri­or­i­tize pol­i­cy issues.

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that Cal­i­for­nia Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty offi­cials work­ing for CAIR had authored an elec­tion vot­ing guide pos­i­tive­ly rat­ing votes by Demo­c­rat law­mak­ers, includ­ing Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Kamala Har­ris, who ear­li­er had sent let­ters of sup­port to CAIR.

The Coun­cil on Amer­i­can Islam­ic Rela­tions is part of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, a transna­tion­al Islamist net­work cov­ered by the GIOR. It describes itself as “a grass­roots civ­il rights and advo­ca­cy group” and as “America’s largest Islam­ic civ­il lib­er­ties group.” It was found­ed in 1994 by three offi­cers of the Islam­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of Pales­tine, part of the U.S. Hamas infra­struc­ture at that time.

For more on CAIR, go here.