The newly formed American Congress in which democrats
won by a landslide
requires an analytical assessment, says the author of the article.
The Washington
Report says that the
composition of the new Congress can help in understanding its new tendencies.
Observers found the most striking
aspect of the new Congress is that it is still mostly dominated by white
men. However, after a 12-year Republican-
majority, Nancy Pelosi, D-California, is the first congresswoman
to head the House of Representatives. Five more
women were voted into the new congress to total 86 women in
both the House of Representatives and the
Senate.
The black minority however, remained at 43: three
members left and three new members were voted in,
among whom is Keith Allison, [See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison] a Muslim, who won 56% of the votes
in his constituency,
Minnesota. Allison is said to have supported civil rights, such as those of homosexuals and a
woman’s
right to abortion. The report says that he did not make his own faith a matter of discussion during
his
electoral campaign. Some commentators wondered if Allison would take the oath on the Bible or the
Qur’ān.
It is also stated in the report that the number of Jewish senators
increased in
the last elections to 13 members instead of the previous 11. Jewish representatives now
consist of 30 compared to
26 from the previous session. Representative Rahm Emanuel is said to have helped
the Democrats victory. The
representative who once served in the Israeli army is likely to occupy a leading
position in the democratic
majority in the House of Representatives.
