"My support for Israel is not conditional on the outcome of the peace process. America's special relationship with Israel precedes and transcends the peace process. And Israel's adversaries should know that in my administration, this special relationship will continue even if they cannot bring themselves to make true peace with the Jewish state. Something else will happen when I take office in January 2001: I will set in motion immediately the process of moving the U.S. ambassador to the city Israel has chosen as its capital, Jerusalem.

The degree to which the Bush Administration will thrust itself into Middle East peace efforts, press Congress to approve the $450 million Israel supplemental aid request submitted by its predecessor (packaged in a $750 million bid that included $225 million for Egypt and $75 million for Jordan) and left hanging at the close of the last session, and advance the upgrading of U.S.-Israel strategic relations that had been negotiated by outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, are all unknown at present. Also uncertain is the fate of the office of Special Middle East Coordinator, occupied by Ambassador Dennis Ross, who has already announced his intention to retire; there is speculation among foreign affairs observers in Washington that the functions of Special Middle East Coordinator may be taken over - or, by this view, taken back - by State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. In the coming weeks, it can be expected that Secretary-designate Powell, who spoke December 16 in guardedly optimistic terms of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, will demonstrate through sub-cabinet appointments and news interviews just how he intends to advance those talks and otherwise demonstrate U.S. support for Israel.

Ethnic Politics

Not only are the details of a Bush Administration Middle East policy yet to be revealed, also unclear is the degree to which domestic political considerations - or the importance of close liaison with ethnic constituencies on the U.S. political scene - will be a factor in policy formulation. In the course of the campaign, both parties' nominees reached out aggressively to Jewish voters and contributors ­ as have previous Democratic and Republican presidential candidates ­ with special briefings by the nominee and key advisers, targeted mailings, press strategies, fund-raising appeals, and appearances before Jewish audiences. Both political conventions last summer had full programs of private meetings and receptions for Jewish partisans.

The messages the two campaigns telegraphed to Jewish voters differed sharply: the Gore campaign raised concerns about Republicans' alliance with the religious right and stressed the Vice President's ample record on traditional public policy concerns of the Jewish community mainstream, from support for Israel to reproductive choice; the Bush campaign stressed the Governor's record as a moderate who comfortably reached out to ethnic minorities, highlighted his awareness of the dangers posed by nonconventional weapons proliferation and his support for a strong defence, and maintained that his embrace of Israel was more meaningful than his opponent's because it was based on respect for Israel's prerogative to pursue peace on its own terms - not Washington's.

As President-elect Bush organizes his administration and fleshes out his policy agenda, Jewish activists will be assessing whether the follow-up to his campaign appeals matches the appeals themselves: in community outreach, access to key advisers, and a tone and set of decisions reflecting steadiness, moderation, anti-isolationism, and an unwavering alliance with Israel.

But it won't be Jewish activists alone who are watching and measuring the new President. Arab Americans and American Muslims, interlocking communities that have significant voting strength in a number of populous states and this year received increased attention from both parties, also will be monitoring the new administration's policy and personnel choices, with a variety of perspectives. While American Muslims, some of them African-American converts and many South and Southeast Asians, may have limited concern about U.S. Middle East policy, many Arab Americans, at least half of them non-Muslim, may consider it central to their political outlook; while both communities include active supporters of the Democratic Party (most notably James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute), Republicans made new inroads this year and, with former White House chief of staff John Sununu helping with Arab American outreach and emphasizing a "more even-handed" approach to the Middle East, may have won new support both among Muslims generally and among Arab Americans. (Another factor in this year's presidential race was the candidacy of Green Party nominee Ralph Nader, an Arab American who may have won increased support from that constituency for reasons not dissimilar to some Jewish voters' support for Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Lieberman.) More significant than foreign policy, however, in appeals to Muslims and Arab Americans may have been both campaigns' signals that they would alter current law allowing the Government to use so-called secret evidence to exclude or expel immigrants believed to be linked to terrorist groups; the clearest call for secret evidence repeal came from Governor Bush, who mentioned the issue in the second presidential debate.

How the campaigns' appeals to Jewish as well as Arab American and Muslim voters paid off at the polls is open to interpretation. But the evidence is clearer in the case of Jews; exit polls typically divide respondents by religious affiliation into Catholics, Protestants, Jews, "others" and "none." And, as in the past, Jews in the 2000 presidential race heavily favoured the Democratic candidate. While Protestants, constituting 54 percent of the vote, favoured Bush over Gore, 55 to 43 percent, Catholics, accounting for 27 percent, sided narrowly with the Vice President, 50-46; each group cast 2 percent of its votes for Nader, and 1 percent for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. Jews, making up 4 percent of the vote, chose Gore, 79-19, over Bush, with 1 percent for Nader. In their devotion to the Democratic nominee, Jews were exceeded by only one demographic grouping, other than self-described Democrats and liberals: African-Americans, with 10 percent of the vote, who overwhelmingly picked the Vice President, 90-8-1-1. Hispanics, at 7 percent, chose Gore, 63-33-3-1, as did Asian Americans, with 2 percent, 55-41-3-1.

Democratic and Republican Arab Americans have offered conflicting views on the impact of their community's votes on the presidential outcome; while one group pointed to roughly 60-40 GOP votes in certain predominantly Arab precincts in Michigan, other observers noted that Michigan itself, despite a significant Arab American bloc, went 51-47 for Gore, and saw the defeat of the sole Arab American in the U.S. Senate, Spencer Abraham, a first-term Republican, who fell to Democratic Representative Debbie Stabenow, 49-48. A poll by the Arab American Institute, based on a random sample of Arab Americans taken nationwide three weeks after the election, found Bush edging Gore, 45-38, with 13 percent saying they had supported Nader; 69 percent were reported to have claimed Lieberman was a factor in their vote.

The precise impact of that Lieberman factor may never be fully known, although political scientists doubtless will find it a compelling subject for research and analysis for years to come. Whether Gore's success in states with significant Jewish populations - including the usually, but not always, Democratic bastions of California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania - and his near-success in pivotal Florida were in part attributable to his historic selection of a Jewish running mate is a valid area of inquiry; surely Senator Lieberman proved to be a formidable asset to the campaign, a warm and energetic counterpoint to the sometimes fusty presidential nominee, and early polls found him appealing to voters across the religious, ethnic and even ideological spectrum. But it is also unknown whether some voters, out of ignorance or prejudice, may have steered away from Gore because of his running mate's religion; the consensus of political analysts immediately after the Vice President made his selection, in late July, held that potential voters turned off by a Jewish candidate were probably unwinnable by Gore anyway, and that the few marginal voters Lieberman might cost the ticket would probably be more than offset by those voters, of various ethnic and religious backgrounds, he would likely attract. As Lieberman waged his spirited, almost successful fight, the analysts' consensus held.

Senate

The defeat of Abraham, who had worked closely with Jewish organizations on immigration, antiterrorism and other legislation, was one of five losses suffered by the Republican Senate majority. Other GOP incumbents who failed to win re-election were John Ashcroft of Missouri, who lost to the recently deceased Democratic Governor, Mel Carnahan, and will be replaced by Carnahan's widow, Jean, in the 107th Congress; Slade Gorton of Washington, who lost to former Democratic Representative and Internet entrepreneur Maria Cantwell; Rod Grams of Minnesota, defeated by retail chain heir Mark Dayton; and William Roth Jr. of Delaware, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, who lost to popular Democratic Governor Thomas Carper.

One Democratic incumbent was defeated - Virginia's Charles Robb, whose claim on a Senate seat in a state now reliably Republican has been shaky for years, and who was felled by former Republican Governor George Allen. The Democrats' four-seat net gain in the Senate was preserved by an even split in the parties' pick-ups of the seats of two retiring Senators: Nevada Democrat Richard Bryan's chair passing to former Republican Representative John Ensign, and Florida's strongly pro-Israel Republican Connie Mack's seat being taken by Democratic State Treasurer and former Representative Bill Nelson. The Republicans' 54-46 pre-election majority wiped out, the party will retain control of the now evenly divided chamber through the tie-breaking vote of the new Vice President, Dick Cheney.

With Senator Lieberman returning to the chamber, galloping to re-election in Connecticut even as his ticket gained a national popular vote edge but fell short in the Electoral College, the Jewish "caucus" in the upper body remains at 10 - down from the super-minyan of the 106th Congress, when there were 11 Jewish Senators, but at an historic high nonetheless. The change in the 107th was wrought by this year's retirement of three-term Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, a longtime champion for Soviet Jewry, for Israel, and for a just society, and author of landmark laws that uphold the claims of U.S. victims of international terror and that continue to assure sanctuary in America for Russian Jews fleeing religious persecution. Lautenberg's seat remained in Democratic hands with the election of financier and political newcomer Jon Corzine. Two Jewish Senators, in addition to Lieberman, sought and easily won re-election - Democrats Dianne Feinstein in California, Herb Kohl in Wisconsin; the Senate's lone Jewish Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, will continue to serve in the 107th Congress, alongside Democrats Barbara Boxer of California, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, Carl Levin of Michigan, Charles Schumer of New York, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Although it ultimately had no net effect on the chamber's party split, the most closely watched of this year's 34 Senate races was undoubtedly the New York showdown between First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Representative Rick Lazio of Long Island. Although the First Lady won decisively, 55-43, polls throughout much of the race indicated a closer contest, and appeals to the state's substantial Jewish community - as much as 14 percent of the electorate, usually but not uniformly Democratic, and therefore regarded as crucial and more or less winnable by both camps - were aggressive and relentless. Each candidate put forth a firmly pro-Israel message, with Mrs. Clinton taking exception to her husband's cautious stance on Jerusalem and distancing herself from previous comments expressing support for Palestinian statehood, and Representative Lazio emphasising his votes for Israel aid and for moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But while difficult to differentiate in their appeals on Israel, other issues in this generally Democratic state seemed to play in the First Lady's favour, as she allied herself with the Gore-Lieberman messages on the economy, health care costs, gun control, and future Supreme Court appointments. Exit polls showed her edging the Congressman on Election Day among Jewish voters, 53-45 - a majority, to be sure, but less than the margin of victory traditionally enjoyed by Democratic candidates for statewide office in New York.

House

Democrats had hoped to wipe out the Republicans' 13-seat House advantage and win back the control they had lost in the 1994 election. They managed to make a few gains, knocking off several weak incumbents and picking up open seats, but they suffered losses along the way and ended up with a net gain of two seats, which had the result of narrowing the majority's margin to 9: a chamber of 221 Republicans, 212 Democrats, and two independents - one a nominal Republican, the other a nominal Democrat. (One Democrat, veteran and widely respected Los Angeles Representative Julian Dixon, of the 32nd District, died of a heart attack after regaining his seat; it is expected that his successor, chosen next year in a special election, will keep the seat in Democratic hands.)

Although most House incumbents, as always, managed to fend off challenges, there were several exceptions. The most significant for the Jewish community was the loss of 10-term Democrat Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut's 2nd District, a son of Holocaust survivors who was born in a displaced persons camp, grew up on a farm in eastern Connecticut, served in the state legislature, and then ran for and won the House seat vacated by now-Senator Christopher Dodd. The Congressman's hold on the seat had been insecure for years; he won by just 21 votes in 1994 and was routinely targeted as one of the chamber's most vulnerable members. But his quick wit, frankness and informality made him popular and effective among his colleagues - and, in his tenure in the 106th as ranking Democrat on the International Relations Committee, led to an easy relationship with the committee's Republican chairman, Benjamin Gilman of upstate New York's 20th District. Gejdenson's loss to former CIA agent and congressional aide Rob Simmons, 51-49, removes a veteran member of the House Jewish "caucus" but leaves the International Relations panel's ranking Democratic post in no less capable hands - those of Representative Tom Lantos, of northern California's 12^th District, one of the chamber's most outspoken and knowledgeable internationalists, and himself a Holocaust survivor.

In addition to Representative Gejdenson, four Republican incumbents and one Democrat lost. In all, with those shifts in party control and with the outcomes of races in open seats, Democrats picked up 10 seats, Republicans 8, for a net Democratic gain of 2. The result continued the party's slow rebuilding in the House; Democrats netted 5 seats in 1998. But two years after the resignation of the controversial Newt Gingrich, the Georgian who led Republicans to success in 1994, assumed the speakership, and was judged by his party colleagues to have so polarised the House that he nearly cost them their majority four years later, the 2000 election suggests new Republican stability. Although Democrats have modestly shaved the GOP's already thin margin, J. Dennis Hastert, the moderate Illinois Republican who won the Speaker's chair in 1999, appears to have succeeded in projecting an aura of reasonableness and maturity that, while calming an often fractious party caucus, has helped extend the GOP reign.

With the Republicans still narrowly in control of the chamber, their committee chairmen would normally continue to hold the gavels they have been wielding for six years - but for a caucus rule change instituted by the new majority in 1995, which limited chairmen to three terms. Thus International Relations Chairman Gilman has been forced to relinquish his post, although it is believed likely that he will take over a newly created subcommittee on the panel and retain his strong influence on Middle East policy; his chairmanship has been notable for its advocacy of a close U.S.-Israel relationship, as well as support for direct, bilateral negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Similarly, Henry Hyde, the Illinois Republican who has chaired the Judiciary Committee for six years, Jim Leach, the Iowan who chairs Banking, Alabama Republican Sonny Callahan, chair of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee - all, and many of their most powerful colleagues, are stepping aside and seeking new positions. House Republicans will pick their new chairmen, after an extended process of interviews and the usual organizational politicking, at the start of the next Congress. Among the contenders for Gilman's chair are Hyde and Leach, joined by Nebraska's Doug Bereuter and New Jersey's Christopher Smith. All are considered supportive of close U.S.-Israel ties. Hyde's chair in Judiciary is expected to go to F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin. Northern Virginia Republican Frank Wolf, a supporter of foreign aid and considered a friend of Israel, is expected to take over the chair of Callahan, a reluctant internationalist, on the Foreign Operations panel. Still unclear is who will assume the chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee held by retiring Pennsylvania Representative Bill Goodling; contenders for the panel that deals with crucial matters of civil rights and education policy include New Jersey's Marge Roukema and Wisconsin's Tom Petri.

The House's Jewish "caucus" swelled in the 2000 election, from 23 members in the 106th Congress (and 25 at the start of the 105th) to 27 in the 107th, a number that includes two Republicans - Gilman and freshman Eric Cantor of Virginia's 7th District. Except for Vermont Independent Bernard Sanders, who typically votes Democratic but does not identify with the party, all other Jewish House members are Democrats. The new additions to the group next year will be Jane Harman of southern California's 36th District, who defeated Republican Steven Kuykendall to return to a seat she relinquished after three terms to make an unsuccessful bid for the gubernatorial nomination in 1998; Susan Davis of San Diego's 49th District, a state representative who defeated three-term Republican Brian Bilbray; municipal official and former congressional aide (and former American Jewish Congress area director) Steve Israel of New York's 2nd District, who sought and won Representative Lazio's old seat; and Adam Schiff, a state senator who waged what may have been the most expensive House campaign ever (a combined $10 million) to unseat Republican James Rogan, who gained national fame as a House manager in the Clinton impeachment trial, in California's 27th District.

Rounding out the Jewish "caucus" in the House will be Democrats Gary Ackerman of New York, Shelley Berkley of Nevada, Howard Berman of California, Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, Peter Deutsch of Florida, Eliot Engel of New York, Bob Filner of California, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Martin Frost of Texas, Tom Lantos of California, Sander Levin of Michigan, Nita Lowey of New York, Jerrold Nadler of New York, Steve Rothman of New Jersey, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Brad Sherman of California, Norman Sisisky of Virginia, Henry Waxman of California, Anthony Weiner of New York, and Robert Wexler of Florida. The senior Jewish Democrat in the House is Representative Waxman, who easily won his 14th term.

Implications

The narrowing of already narrow Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate, combined with the fact that the next President will come to office with the narrowest of Electoral College margins and with an actual minority of the popular vote, opens the door to at least two scenarios for the 107th: a Congress in which there is a premium on moderation and bipartisanship, since failure to satisfy the moderate centre of both parties will deny the majority functional control, or (perhaps more likely) a Congress in perpetual gridlock, as both the majority and minority find their agendas driven by the most ideological wings of their parties and the desire to position for the election of 2002. Which path Congress takes will turn in part on how President-elect Bush relates to members from the opposing party; he has already signalled a desire to reach across the aisle, and even to appoint Democrats to his administration, although some in his own party, after eight years in executive branch Siberia, have expressed profound reservations with such open-mindedness.

With education at the top of both Democratic and Republican agendas, many eyes will be watching how the issue fares in the new political constellation. The 106th Congress failed to reauthorise the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the first time that this law has failed to be reenacted when due. Reauthorization stalled when Republicans sought to use this initiative to limit the federal role in education and incorporate vouchers provisions, while Democrats sought to increase funding for education programs that would, among other things, decrease class size and modernise and repair school facilities. While the least one can expect is that funding for existing programs will continue at current levels, it is hard to see how this logjam will be broken in the 107th Congress.

The new Congress provides good prospects for at least moderate reform in the treatment of immigrants. During its lame duck session, the 106^th Congress produced a final package that failed, unfortunately, to enact most of a number of pending immigration initiatives that would have promoted fairer treatment of immigrants. There has, nevertheless, been growing consensus in favour of a rollback of certain provisions of the 1996 immigration law's assault on the due process available to legal immigrants and would-be asylum seekers. It is possible that the narrower margins in Congress will be helpful in moving forward on reforms of the immigration law, such as legislation directed at continuing the restoration of public benefits available to legal immigrants, providing for equitable treatment of Latino and other immigrants in terms of eligibility for normalisation of status, more extensive due process reforms than those on which there is already apparent consensus, and modification of expedited exclusion procedures applicable to those seeking asylum. Much here will depend on the support President-elect Bush is willing to give these measures; although he and his opponent both campaigned on "pro-immigrant" planks, there were clearly differences in the policies they would endorse, and the Bush immigration agenda is yet to fully evolve. (One good omen: By all reports, incoming National Security Adviser Rice is greatly concerned with issues affecting refugees.) Another crucial variable in the 107^th Congress will be the change at the helms of both the Senate and House Judiciary subcommittees charged with responsibility for immigration policy. Senator Abraham, the outgoing immigration subcommittee chairman and a friend of immigration advocates, was, as noted, defeated in his bid for reelection; Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, Abraham's House counterpart, who was not regarded by advocates as friendly to immigrants' concerns, was compelled by Republican caucus rules to relinquish his chairmanship.

The Hate Crimes Prevention Act will face hard sledding in the coming year. Even though this bill was endorsed by majorities in both houses of Congress, it was dropped this year, because of sharp opposition by congressional leadership, from the appropriations bill in which it had been included. It failed to make it into any other of the vehicles on which Congress acted before the session closed. The leadership's opposition will not change with the new Congress, and President-elect Bush, who has opposed federal hate crimes legislation, may well join the congressional leadership in seeking to thwart the bill's enactment.

Also in doubt is the future of federal affirmative action programs, which President-elect Bush has criticised, and which he may decide to roll back using his administrative powers. At the congressional level, the tightened margins are likely to make it more difficult to move against affirmative action programs; even in the outgoing Congress there was no enthusiasm by opponents of affirmative action to engage this fight. But those opponents may now be energised by an ally in the White House.

Finally, and perhaps most crucially, President-elect Bush will likely have the opportunity to appoint one or more justices to the United States Supreme Court, with all that portends for church-state issues, civil rights, and abortion. He will be pressed by conservatives in his party, and he may be moved by his own political compass, to try through such appointments to shift the Court's centre rightward. Already confronting an evenly split Senate that will make confirmation of justices a challenge in any event, the centrality of the Supreme Court as an issue was only amplified when the Court placed the final seal on Bush's election, by a 5-4 vote, on December 12. The unprecedented political circumstances that brought him to office and that he will now face on Capitol Hill may encourage the new President to seek nominees who are at least ostensibly moderate and thus less likely to ignite a firestorm of Borkian proportions.

Copyright © AIJAC 2000
Last Updated 14 March, 2001