Has called for a new trial for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal
His voting record is rated between 95 and 100 percent by Americans for Democratic Action.
Chaka Fattah is an African-American Democratic Member of Congress who represents the Second District of Pennsylvania, the state's only black-majority (61 percent) district, which includes much of downtown Philadelphia as well as Cheltenham Township. (His name Chaka, a variant of the same first name as African warrior-ruler Shaka Zulu, in Swahili means “Great King.”)
Fattah was born in Philadelphia in 1956. His mother is the community activist Sister Falaka Fattah, who founded the House of Umoja (Swahili for “Unity”) in West Philadelphia, which helps black teenaged males who have suffered physical or psychological abuse.
By age 21, Chaka Fattah was the House of Umoja's Assistant Director. Three years later, in 1980, he took a job as special assistant to Philadelphia's Director of Housing and Community Development. In 1982 he became the youngest person ever elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature. He studied at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1984, and in 1986 he earned a master’s degree in government administration at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1988 Fattah was elected to the Pennsylvania state senate. When veteran U.S. congressman William Gray resigned to become President of the United Negro College Fund in 1991, Fattah ran unsuccessfully for Gray's newly vacated House seat as a Consumer Party candidate. He lost the election to the Democratic ward leaders’ nominee, and thus remained in the state senate until 1994.
In 1994 Fattah ran successfully for the Second District seat in the U.S. Congress. Backed by Philadelphia’s African-American clergy and running as a Democrat, Fattah garnered 79percent of the vote. He has been re-elected by huge margins every two years since then, generally receiving between 86 and 98 percent of the popular vote.
Fattah belongs to the Congressional Black Caucus and the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives. Americans for Democratic Action rates his voting record as 95-100 percent on the left side of legislation. During his legislative career, Fattah has voted:
against the development of a national missile defense system;
against allowing the U.S. government to use electronic surveillance to investigate suspected terrorist operatives;
against a bill permitting the government to combat potential terrorist threats by monitoring foreign electronic communications which are routed through the United States;
against an October 2002 joint resolution authorizing U.S. military action in Iraq;
against separate welfare reform bills designed to move people off the welfare rolls and into paying jobs;
in favor of prohibiting oil and gas exploration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR); and
against a proposal to fund offshore oil exploration along the Outer Continental Shelf.
Fattah is among the most prominent lawmakers calling for a new trial for the leftist icon Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted and serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
