Located in South Florida, Wilson's congressional district, numbered 17th during her first term, covers a large swath of eastern Miami-Dade County.

She has gone through efforts to get Congress to lift its ban on head coverings during House sessions, which dates to 1837.

While a member of the school board,[10] Wilson started 5,000 Role Models of Excellence, an in-school mentoring program.

[10] She then represented the 33rd district[11] in the Florida Senate from 2002 until her election to Congress in 2010, when term limits prevented her from running again.

[12] For the 118th Congress:[13] When Kendrick Meek retired from Florida's 17th congressional district to run for the United States Senate in 2010, Wilson ran for the open seat and won the Democratic nomination.

During the 117th Congress, Wilson voted with President Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis.

[19] During her career as an educator, Wilson founded the 5000 Role Models program, which seeks to bring down dropout rates.

[20] She has expressed concern with the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), suggesting that the funds spent administering it would be better spent on improving education by hiring more teachers, and proposing in 2012 that tutoring companies be banned from exploiting vulnerable children, "even if it means banning companies like Ignite!

At a Miami town hall meeting in 2011, she told citizens to remember that the Tea Party is the real enemy and that they hold Congress hostage.

[28] Concern was raised about Wilson's outspoken comments, with some asking if her rhetoric was "making it more difficult for the prosecutor to do her job".

She was part of a coalition of African-American fraternity and sorority leaders who launched an anti-hazing campaign after the 2011 death of Florida A&M drum major Robert Champion Jr.[32] MSNBC's "The Grio", an African-American news and opinion platform, named Wilson to "The Grio 100" for 2012.

[37] He also attacked Wilson for having listened to the phone call and claimed that she had a "history of politicizing what should be sacred moments", citing the 2015 dedication of an FBI field office in Miami as an example.

[44][45][46] During her nine-minute speech, Wilson spoke for less than three minutes about leading an effort to expedite a bill through Congress.

Wilson dedicated the remainder of her speech to acknowledging other politicians involved in the effort, thanking FBI personnel, and talking about the slain agents.

[4] The rule was partially relaxed after the election of two Muslim women to congress in 2018, one of whom, Ilhan Omar, wore a hijab to her swearing in on January 3, 2019.