Will Israel Pay Price
For Finance Reform?
JAMES D. BESSER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
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0 my gamblers with a taste
for long odds would bet
that Congress and the
Clinton administration
will live up to their promises to
drastically change an American
political system where money
rules and access is for sale to the
highest bidder.
But modest campaign finance
reform is almost certainly in the
cards in 1997 as the president
and Congress react to sensa-
tional accounts of dubious con-
gressional fund-raising on both
sides of the aisle, White House
slumber parties for big contrib-
utors and the ethical misadven-
tures of House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, R-Ga. .
That, in turn, will present a
dilemma for a Jewish commu-
nity that has learned to use the
current system — with all its
glaring imperfections — to ben-
efit Israel.
In his recent State of the
Union speech, President Clin-
ton received strong applause
when he pledged to support the
McCain-Feingold bill, which
would ban contributions by po-
litical action committees (PACs),
cut out-of-state contributions to
House and Senate campaigns,
limit soft money and cut
"bundling."
All of these
are techniques
pro-Israel ac-
tivists have
used to good ef-
fect in pursuing
laudable goals,
including
strengthening
the U.S.-Israel
relationship.
Pro-Israel
PACs around
the country
have had a sig-
nificant impact
in educating incumbent legisla-
tors and political aspirants
about the pro-Israel cause. Ob-
scure rabbis in Brooklyn who
have mastered the art of
bundling have instant access to
key politicians because of the
hundreds of thousands of dollars
in campaign money they control,
access they often use on behalf
of Israel.
Any attempt to cut aid to Is-
rael would quickly be opposed
by leading legislators who have
been exposed to the logic of the
pro- Israel cause by the political
financiers — and, just in case
logic isn't enough, who have
strong economic incentives for
voting the "right way."
House and Senate hopefuls
around the country turn to
pro-Israel groups to help them
write position papers on the
Middle East as the essential first
step in winning pro-Israel mon-
ey.
It's a political rule of thumb
that presidential contenders de-
pend heavily on Jewish contri-
butions, especially in the early
phases of a campaign. Former
Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., didn't
have extensive contacts in the
Jewish community, but his ini-
tial presidential finance com-
mittee was more than
half-Jewish.
It's no accident that the new
national chair of the Democrat-
ic National Committee and the
new finance chair of the Repub-
lican National Committee are
big-time Jewish political fund-
raisers.
.
Putting Tools To Good Use
When pro-Israel power was ex-
panding by leaps and bounds in
the 1960s and '70s, there were
some who cautioned against us-
ing all of these tools of political
influence; there was a sense that
they were somehow unworthy
of a community that claims to
be driven by age-
old morality as
well as political
necessity, and
there were con-
cerns about an
anti-Semitic
backlash.
But now that
pro-Israel power
is an established
fact, few are
complaining
about how that
clout was ob-
tained. Even
good govern-
ment advocates worry that some
of the gains of recent years may
be lost if the mechanisms that
have worked so well for Jewish
high-rollers are shut down.
Hence the dilemma for Jew-
ish leaders.
Selling access is nothing new
in American politics, but the fan-
tastic amounts of money in-
volved in the 1996 campaigns
created unprecedented pressure
on Congress to do something.
Even a watered-down bill
could have a significant impact
on pro- Israel power.
"It's like the flow of water
downhill," said a longtime Jew-
ish political fund-raiser. "You
block one route, and the water
flows somewhere else. But it