Pro-Israel PAC Contributions May Be Too Public for the Lobby’s Taste

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs • The Israel Lobby and American Policy • March 24, 2017

“[W]ith continuing talk about campaign finance reform, including support by Senate Republicans for abolishing PACs altogether, there was a conscious effort by AIPAC-affiliated PACs to lower their profiles.

“AIPAC leaders have boasted for years that for every dollar donated by their chain of PACs, at least one additional dollar reaches AIPAC-endorsed candidates via direct donations from individual AIPAC or pro-Israel PAC members.…In the 1994 cycle, the pro-Israel PACs devoted greater efforts than ever before to generating such individual donations in order to avoid exposure by public-interest election monitors like this magazine.”

—Richard H. Curtiss, “Sharp Dip in Pro-Israel PAC Donations Reflects Drop in 1994 PAC Revenues,” April/May 1995 Washington Report, p. 27.

More than two decades ago, Washington Report executive editor Richard H. Curtiss noted a drop in donations to pro-Israel PACs. Because it was the early post-Oslo days, he pointed out, many American Jews either may have thought peace was at hand or opposed any possible agreement, leading to a decline in donations from both camps. But one cannot ignore the “nightflower” analogy, whereby the pro-Israel lobby “shrivels up” in the light of day, in the form of the Federal Election Commission’s required public reports, available to all.

In an article in the Nov. 5, 2014 Forward, Nathan Guttman elaborated: “pro-Israel PAC money is a drop in the bucket of Jewish giving to political candidates, especially since the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision known as Citizens United came about, opening the floodgates for unlimited independent expenditures by corporations and individuals on behalf of candidates.” Guttman went on to quote Washington PAC head Morris Amitay as saying, “It’s not about the PACs. It all takes place at the private events. That’s where they raise the real money.”

For the 2016 election cycle, the Center for Responsive Politics (<www.opensecrets.org>) estimates that pro-Israel PAC contributions accounted for just 20 percent of pro-Israel contributions, which it calculated to total $17,096,581—$1.2 million of which went to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Nearly $12 million of the total went to incumbents, and some $2 million more to Democratic rather than to Republican candidates.

Not only did Clinton lose the presidential race, so did the lobby’s top congressional recipient, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who received $100,000 more than Rep. Tammy Duckworth in her successful Senate challenge. AIPAC favorite Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) also went down to defeat, but—perhaps presciently—pro-Israel PACs also contributed to her victorious opponent, Maggie Hassan, the former governor of New Hampshire, who won by a mere 1,017 votes. Pro-Israel PACs stuck to their incumbent strategy in the Wisconsin Senate race, where former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, despite his high career total, received less money than successful incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson. Incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) received less in pro-Israel PAC contributions than his Democratic challenger, Kathleen McGinty, but was re-elected nevertheless.

The incumbent strategy also was abandoned in several House races. While also donating to the incumbent, pro-Israel PACs supported challengers to Rep. Robert Dold (R-IL), Rodney Blum (R-IA), Bruce Poliquin (R-ME), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Thomas Reed (R-NY). Of these incumbents, only Garrett failed to win re-election. Nadler, the only Democrat so challenged, committed the cardinal sin of backing the Iran nuclear agreement. While it may have been a sin in the eyes of the Israel lobby, it apparently was not in the eyes of Nadler’s constituents.

Janet McMahon is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.