As the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives today, they will pass a new rules package that includes a provision allowing religious headgear to be worn on the floor of the House. As reported by ABC radio, this will overturn a nearly 200-year old ban on wearing hats on the House floor. The rule change will allow newly-elected Rep. Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, a Muslim woman, to wear her hijab. Meanwhile, CNN reports more broadly in a piece by Rafia Zakaria:
On January 3, 2019, not one but two Muslim American women will be sworn into Congress. Taking the oath on a Quran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib will become the first Muslim-American women to serve in the House of Representatives.
Their swearing in will be a historic milestone for the country, but it will be so much more than that for me. A black Somali-American woman who wears a headscarf and pokes fun at Islamophobes on Twitter, Omar crushes stereotypes of what a Muslim woman in a headscarf represents. As an unveiled Muslim American woman, Rashida Tlaib — who will wear a Palestinian gown to her swearing in — also dismantles the myth that all “real” Muslim women wear the headscarf.