Quotes from Keith Ellison

My values - going back to my childhood - were always based on respect for all people and rejection of bigotry and racism.

One of the things that will decline over time is the demand that the society or the government bring forth a particularized racial remedy based on a history of deprivation. That will be even more difficult to do in the future.

Americans deserve journalists who provide responsible, objective reporting.

Republicans profess to be against deficits, but they are experts at creating and exacerbating deficits.

My faith and my identity as a Muslim - I never saw it as something that made my job harder. It's just an aspect of who I am.

When you're a leader, you cannot ignore parts of your constituency, even if you know they're not going to vote for you.

Those who seek the divine want to make this world a better place, which first requires that we communicate.

At the end of the day, the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott had to be converted into the 1964 Civil Rights Act. We don't want politicians who've gotta be coaxed, cajoled and protested. We want them on our side from the beginning.

I've been talking to people all over the country, city council members, grassroots leaders, party leaders, members in Congress - and you know what? The truth is I'll have something to say real soon.

I've never gotten up in front of a Muslim congregation and played the role of a religious leader, and I decline those invitations because that's not what I am.

While there are corporal descriptions of what the afterlife is like in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, what's going on there is the finite trying to describe the infinite. If God knows everything, started everything and is the only one who knows how it's going to end, how can any human know what God wants?

I'm not a scholar of Islamic history or jurisprudence or anything.

A Republican philosophy goes something like this: If you take your car to the mechanic, and instead of fixing it, they take out the engine and charge you an arm and a leg, you should conclude that mechanics can't fix cars and you should probably just take yours to the junkyard and sell it for scrap metal.

I understand the risks associated with being a soldier. But I think as members of Congress, we should not intensify the chance that we'll have to commit troops to a military conflict unless it's absolutely necessary to defend the nation.

We need more leaders speaking up for minority groups who have been marginalized and attacked.

We need young people to be involved, and we have to expect that young people are going to be impatient, they don't want to wait, and they've got new ideas and new ways of looking at problems.

I think debates are healthy. I think they include more people. And I don't believe most people, if they don't win, are just going to take their ball and go home.

What is it to be white? It does mean something to be Norwegian. It means something to be Polish or German or Spanish. But 'white' is simply a catchall for 'light-skinned person.' It doesn't really mean anything.

I think that anybody who is going to be the standard-bearer, the spokesman for the progressive movement, in the context of a presidential race, has got to learn to master the language and really get their finger on the pulse of how people are feeling. I think that's really important.

For Ben Carson, Donald Trump, or any other Republican politician to suggest that someone of any faith is unfit for office is out of touch with who we are as a people.

Americans used to be able to depend on their jobs to provide a stable retirement.

All I'd like to say is that I am a patriotic, loyal American. I love my country and the values that it stands for. And I am a Muslim.

Serving my neighbors in Congress and fighting for them has been the best job I've ever had.

Middle class families should not be forced to scrape by with less while oil companies get away with more.