# Keith Ellison *American lawyer and politician; 30th Attorney General of Minnesota (2019–present); U.S. representative for Minnesota's 5th district (2007–2019).* Keith Maurice Ellison (born August 4, 1963) was sworn in on January 7, 2019, as the 30th [[Attorney General of Minnesota]], and he still holds the office.[^1] He is a member of the [[Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party]]. Before becoming attorney general he sat in the [[Minnesota House of Representatives]] from 2003 to 2007 and represented Minnesota's 5th congressional district in the [[United States House of Representatives]] from 2007 to 2019.[^2][^3] He won the attorney general's office in 2018 and kept it in 2022, 50.4 percent to 49.5 percent.[^4][^5] When he took office, Ellison named wage theft, drug prices and consumer protection as his priorities.[^1] A Fox 9 timeline reports that the [[Minnesota Department of Education]] flagged the [[Feeding Our Future]] nutrition-program fraud in July 2019.[^6] The case was prosecuted federally. On September 20, 2022, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota announced charges against 47 defendants, and it later announced a jury verdict against founder [[Aimee Bock]] and a co-defendant.[^7][^8] In 2026 the majority staff of the House Oversight Committee published [[The Cost of Doing Nothing]], whose full title names Ellison and Governor [[Tim Walz]]. The report concludes that the two "clearly did not protect taxpayer dollars" and leaves open "whether this was incompetence, willful blindness, or worse."[^9] As attorney general, Ellison defends the State in *[[United States v. State of Minnesota (0:26-cv-00273)]]*. This is the pending [[Title VII]] suit that the [[United States Department of Justice]] brought over [[Minn. Stat. § 43A.191]]. DOJ announced it in release No. 26-21, titled *United States Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Minnesota's 'Affirmative Action' Regime*.[^10][^11][^12] Ellison is also the named defendant in *[[Female Athletes United v. Ellison]]*, in which the Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction on April 15, 2026.[^13] Across his career, the record places him in three roles: - defense counsel against a State prosecution in 1995; - the State's lead prosecutor in the [[Derek Chauvin]] case from 2020; - the State's counsel against the United States in 2026. The record does not establish why he took any of these roles.[^14][^15] ## Early life, education, and career Ellison was born in Detroit, Michigan, the third of five sons of a psychiatrist and a social worker, and was raised Catholic.[^3] He became a Muslim at 19 while studying at Wayne State University, where he took a bachelor's degree in economics in 1986. He then moved to [[Minneapolis]] for the [[University of Minnesota Law School]], which awarded him a J.D. in 1990.[^3][^16] After law school he spent three years at Lindquist & Vennum, litigating civil rights, employment and criminal defense matters. He then directed the Legal Rights Center, a Minneapolis nonprofit that represents indigent clients, and later entered private practice at Hassan & Reed Ltd.[^3] His past statements and his affiliation with the Nation of Islam were re-examined during his 2017 bid to chair the Democratic National Committee.[^3] In *State v. Knutson*, 539 N.W.2d 254 (Minn. Ct. App. decided Oct. 31, 1995), Ellison represented the defendant, Kieran Knutson. The prosecution arose from an October 22, 1993 rally on the University of Minnesota campus that turned violent. The office of Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III prosecuted the case, and the appeal concerned the State's power to compel unpublished photographs from the *Minnesota Daily*.[^14] ## Minnesota House of Representatives On November 5, 2002, voters in House district 58B elected Ellison to his first public office.[^17] He won a second term in 2004 with 84 percent of the vote and left the seat on his election to Congress.[^3] On February 24, 2006, the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board issued findings and an order concerning the Committee to Elect Keith Ellison.[^18][^19] Wikipedia summarizes the board's reprimand as covering unreported contributions, cash-balance discrepancies and misclassified disbursements in his 2002–04 House campaigns. Its account adds four points: - the board opened an investigation in 2005; - the board subpoenaed and fined him; - he was fined repeatedly for late filings; - the Attorney General of Minnesota, the office he has held since 2019, sued him twice.[^3] ## U.S. House of Representatives Ellison ran for the seat held by retiring Representative Martin Olav Sabo. He won the DFL endorsement on the fourth ballot at the party's May 6, 2006 convention and won the September 12, 2006 primary with 41 percent. On November 7, 2006, he won the general election with 56 percent against Republican Alan Fine, the Green Party's Jay Pond and the Independence Party's Tammy Lee.[^3][^20] During that campaign, opponents raised the repeated suspension of his driver's license for unpaid tickets and fines.[^21][^3] Wikipedia also records that the state and the IRS placed liens on his home over income taxes left wholly or partly unpaid in five years between 1992 and 2000, and that he later paid more than $18,000.[^3] He took his seat on January 4, 2007. He was the first Muslim member of Congress and the first African American to represent Minnesota in the House, and he took the oath on Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Quran.[^20][^2] He served six terms, co-chaired the Congressional Progressive Caucus and was a chief deputy whip.[^2][^3] In November 2015, during the occupation outside the [[Minneapolis Police Department]]'s Fourth Precinct, Ellison called for the occupation to end, according to MPR News.[^22] In 2017 he ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee, lost to Tom Perez, and was appointed deputy chair.[^3] ## Minnesota Attorney General ### Elections On June 5, 2018, Ellison announced that he would run for attorney general instead of seeking a seventh House term. He won the August 14 primary with 49.8 percent. On November 6, 2018, he defeated Republican Doug Wardlow by more than 100,000 votes. He became the first African American elected to statewide office in Minnesota and the first Muslim elected to statewide office in the United States.[^3] In August 2018 Karen Monahan, a former girlfriend, and her son accused him of trying to drag her off a bed while shouting obscenities. Ellison denied the allegations. A Minnesota DFL Party investigation followed, and the project's time table records that it cleared him.[^23][^24][^3] In October 2018 he said he might step down as DNC deputy chair, and he resigned the post after the November election.[^25][^26] In 2022 he was re-elected, 50.4 percent to 49.5 percent.[^4][^5] ### Feeding Our Future According to a Fox 9 timeline, the Department of Education identified fraud red flags in Feeding Our Future's operations in July 2019.[^6] The project's time table records the following for February 2021: - the department took its concerns to the FBI; - the FBI opened an investigation; - the Attorney General's office "begins meeting" with the FBI.[^27] On December 11, 2021, Ellison met for about 50 minutes with Somali community members, two of whom were later convicted in the Feeding Our Future case. The meeting was recorded. Fox 9 reported that $10,000 in program-linked donations reached his campaign nine days later.[^28] The Center of the American Experiment later reported, citing a Campaign Finance Board filing, that Ellison had returned donations it described as fraud-linked.[^29] On September 20, 2022, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced that a federal grand jury had charged 47 defendants in the $250 million Feeding Our Future case. The project's time table gives the count as 47–48.[^7] A federal jury later found Bock and a co-defendant guilty, and the time table dates that verdict to September 2024.[^8] Both releases describe federal prosecutions. The record assembled here contains no state charges filed by the Attorney General's office in the matter.[^7][^8] The House Oversight Committee states that the office produced eleven documents in response to its subpoena.[^30] ### George Floyd prosecution and Minneapolis policing On May 26, 2020, Governor Walz appointed Ellison lead prosecutor in the case against police officer Derek Chauvin, taking the matter from Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.[^15] Ellison's account of the case appears in his book *Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence*.[^3] Ellison endorsed Minneapolis Question 2, a charter amendment to replace the police department with a Department of Public Safety. Voters rejected it 56 to 44 percent on November 2, 2021.[^31] ### Litigation brought by the office On January 12, 2026, Ellison sued to halt Operation Metro Surge, a federal immigration-enforcement operation, calling it an "unprecedented attack on state sovereignty."[^32] In 2025 he joined other state attorneys general in a suit against Executive Order 14187, which barred federal funding for gender-affirming care for minors.[^3] Minnesota, under Ellison, also joined the Department of Justice's multistate antitrust action against [[Google]] over digital advertising technology.[^33] ### United States v. State of Minnesota On January 14, 2026, DOJ's Office of Public Affairs issued release No. 26-21, titled *United States Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Minnesota's 'Affirmative Action' Regime*. Attorney General Pamela Bondi certified the case as a matter of general public importance.[^10] The complaint, No. 0:26-cv-00273 (D. Minn. filed Jan. 14, 2026), is brought under Title VII of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]]. It cites Minn. Stat. § 43A.191 eight times, including subdivision 3(c)'s requirement that an agency explain why it hired a non-affirmative candidate.[^11] The case is pending. The project's time table records proceedings continuing in April 2026, with Ellison defending the State.[^12] The complaint followed *[[Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services]]*, 605 U.S. 303 (2025). In that case the Supreme Court held that Title VII's disparate-treatment provision "draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs."[^34] The U.S. government uses "regime" for governments it opposes. The [[Iraq Liberation Act]] of 1998 (Pub. L. 105-338), for example, states a policy of supporting efforts to remove "the regime headed by Saddam Hussein."[^35] The project's catalogue of U.S.-government "regime" usages (*How Minnesota Got Here*, note 40) finds Minnesota the only U.S. state so described.[^36] The project's case table also lists *[[United States v. Ellison]]*, a 2026 federal civil action in the District of Minnesota. Its caption, docket number and status are to be read from the filed complaint.[^37] ### House Oversight Committee report The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a 54-page report on March 4, 2026, and held a hearing at which Walz and Ellison testified.[^38][^39] The Committee's wrap-up release states that the two ignored taxpayer fraud and silenced state whistleblowers. MinnPost reported the defense Walz and Ellison offered at the hearing.[^40][^41] An expanded 205-page majority staff report followed on June 8, 2026. It estimates roughly $300 million lost in federal child nutrition funds and "potentially $9 billion in Medicaid-related funds lost or at serious risk."[^9] Its conclusion (p. 129) states that "Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison clearly did not protect taxpayer dollars, but it is still an open question as to whether this was incompetence, willful blindness, or worse." It asks the Department of Justice and other agencies to review the State's social-services reimbursement and enrollment-verification processes "from 2019 to the present."[^9] Chairman Comer transmitted the report to Vice President [[JD Vance]] on June 7, 2026. Vance's referral of Walz and Ellison to Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the [[National Fraud Enforcement Division]] was reported on June 8. The referral letter's own date has not been confirmed against a primary copy.[^42] The report is a congressional staff finding, not a criminal adjudication.[^43] ### Female Athletes United v. Ellison *Female Athletes United v. Ellison*, No. 25-2899, is a private suit under [[Title IX]] challenging an MSHSL policy, docketed in the Eighth Circuit in 2025.[^13] On April 15, 2026, a panel (Gruender, J., with Erickson and Grasz) affirmed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction. The court held that the plaintiff had standing. It also held that Title IX supplies a private right of action only for intentional sex discrimination, applying *[[Alexander v. Sandoval]]* through *[[Cannon v. University of Chicago]]*. The plaintiff's ineffective-accommodation and unequal-treatment claims, the court found, "sound in disparate impact," for which no private right of action exists. The panel added that whether Title IX permits transgender participation "remains an open question of law," and noted pending cases including *[[Little v. Hecox]]*.[^13] ## Personal life Ellison married Mónica Hurtado on December 1, 2018. He and his former wife, Kim Ellison, a high school mathematics teacher, have four children, and their divorce was finalized on May 2, 2012.[^3] Kim Ellison was elected to the Minneapolis School Board in 2012 and as an at-large member in November 2016. She was re-elected in 2020 with 61.3 percent and again in 2024.[^3][^44][^45] On December 9, 2025, the Department of Justice sued [[Minneapolis Public Schools]] over collective-bargaining provisions it alleges discriminate by race. The provisions include Article 15 layoff protections, a Black Men Teach memorandum of agreement, and BIPOC salary enhancements.[^46] The couple's son Jeremiah Ellison won the Ward 5 seat on the Minneapolis City Council on November 7, 2017. He was re-elected in 2021 and 2023 and left the council on January 5, 2026.[^47][^31] Ellison's book *My Country 'Tis of Thee* was published in 2014.[^3] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who The House Oversight staff report names Ellison alongside Walz in its title.[^9] Ellison is the named defendant in *Female Athletes United v. Ellison*.[^13] ### When The Committee's recommended review runs from 2019 to the present.[^9] The Eighth Circuit's affirmance came in April 2026.[^13] ### Where *Female Athletes United v. Ellison* was decided in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.[^13] ### Why The Committee states that it remains an open question whether the conduct it describes reflected incompetence, willful blindness, or something worse.[^9] ### How The Eighth Circuit held that Title IX supplies a private right of action only for intentional sex discrimination.[^13] ## Omissions in official accounts The project searched the 54-page and 205-page versions of the Committee's report, 259 pages combined, for terms tied to the statutes and bodies in the State's institutional record. As of the project's verification pass of June 19, 2026, none of the searched terms appears in either document. The project's search returned the following counts. The single "council" hit is a Minneapolis city council member.[^48][^49] | Term | Count in report text | |---|---| | "43A," | 0 | | "201.091," | 0 | | "128C," | 0 | | "Metropolitan Council" | 0 | | "affirmative action" | 0 | | "pay equity" | 0 | | "comparable worth" | 0 | | "fraud" (control) | 631 | | "Walz" (control) | 246 | | "Feeding Our Future" (control) | 123 | | "Ellison" (control) | 110 | Minn. Stat. § 43A.191 is the statute the United States' complaint of January 14, 2026 cites eight times, and it is among the terms with no hits.[^11] The record shows that omission. It does not establish why the report does not address the statute. ## See also - [[United States v. State of Minnesota (0:26-cv-00273)]] - [[Female Athletes United v. Ellison]] - [[The Cost of Doing Nothing]] - [[Feeding Our Future]] - [[Minnesota Attorney General]] - [[University of Minnesota Law School]] ## Notes [^1]: Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, *Attorney General Keith Ell