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Muslim Americans Express Hope With New Legislature
by Jamshed Bokhari
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) – As the results from the Florida presidential recount were being tallied Wednesday, Muslim Americans paused to assess future relations with a new U.S. legislature, weighing gains and losses of friends and foes within the new Senate and Congress.
Along with the presidential vote, one-third of Senate seats and all House seats were contested Tuesday in what some analysts are calling a historic election.
Within both of the legislative houses, the Democrats gained more and loss less seats than Republicans, making the new legislature more balanced as the makeup of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate literally split down the middle with a 50-50 representational division.
The House of Representatives still remains under Republican control.
The total legislative composition, in both House and Senate, before Tuesday’s vote had favored the Republicans who faced a Democratic president in Bill Clinton creating a divided government in which one party controlled the legislature and another controlled the executive office.
Whoever is declared the presidential winner - expected later today - the new executive would face not a divided government, but a divided Senate, making for more of a fight in that legislative house and taking some of the heated battle between the Senate and the presidency away.
Muslim American leaders in this atmosphere see both opportunities with new faces and losses with the defeat of individuals that championed Muslim American causes.
Abdulwahab Alkebsi, Deputy Director for the American Muslim Council (AMC), lamented the loss of Michigan Republican Spencer Abraham in the Senate.
His loss “is a big blow to our aspirations, to our issues in the Senate,” commented Alkebsi. Abraham was on the Senate Immigration Committee, and “he was leading our effort in the secret evidence in the Senate.”
“He was the one who helped us reach presidential candidate Governor George Bush…and his loss is a very serious blow to us,” said Alkebsi.
“However, we still have a lot of friends within both parties, Republicans and Democrats, and we’re going to work very closely with them in our issues, “ he added.
Citing an example of a Republican loss that bodes well for American Muslims, Alkebsi cited the defeat of Bill McCollum in Florida, an individual who, in many instances, advocated issues and policies damaging to American Muslims.
Helping to defeat McCollum were actions by Sami al-Arian, an individual in the Florida area that mobilized American Muslim voter turnout against the Republican.
The closest watched Senate race among Muslim Americans occurred in New York where Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton ended up defeating Republican Rick Lazio in what many American Muslims feel was an extremely negative campaign the center of which focused upon Muslims themselves.
Lazio had utilized a story published in the New York Daily News claiming that Muslim American organizations donating campaign funds to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign funded and backed “terrorist” organizations in the Middle East.
Mrs. Clinton responded by announcing she would return that money.
In a state in which 600,000 Muslims reside, Alkebsi commented on the results of the New York senate race, saying, “His [Lazio] attack on Muslim leaders and Muslim organizations cost him the election.
“Our exit polling shows that Muslims voted heavily against Lazio,” however, “They’re [New York Muslims] not extremely happy with Hillary Clinton,” but Lazio’s actions were so offensive that many Muslims voted for Mrs. Clinton just so that Lazio would not win.
Involuntarily brought to the forefront of the New York senatorial race was Faroque Khan, head of the New York chapter of the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), the organization at the center of the Lazio-Clinton Muslim attack.
Khan played a dual role, on one hand being in the unenviable position as the AMA’s frontman in the region, while at the same time finding the impetus from the affair to redouble efforts in getting out New York’s Muslim vote.
Commenting on Clinton’s win and Lazio’s tactics, Khan stated, “We are very pleased with the energy and the enthusiasm with which the Muslims in New York went out to the polls and in a unanimous manner basically voted against Mr. Lazio.”
Asked if Mrs. Clinton would represent the views of Muslims in the Senate, Khan replied referring to the large Muslim voter turnout that overwhelmingly voted for her, “She’s a smart, intelligent lady and we hope that she got the message and she will represent all New Yorkers in a proper manner.”
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