Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1999, pages 23, 96

Election Roundup

Year of the Incumbent Produces No Change in Arab-American Representation

By Shirl McArthur

The congressional elections of 1998 defied pre-election predictions and produced no fireworks. Only six incumbent representatives and three incumbent senators running for re-election were defeated.

All six of the Arab-American incumbent representatives were re-elected, and all three of the Arab-American congressional challengers (including “honorary Arab American” Democrat Eileen Ansari in California) were defeated.

In other races, Jeanne Shaheen (D) was re-elected as governor of New Hampshire with 66 percent of the vote, and 20 other Arab Americans were elected or re-elected to various state and local offices.

Among the congressional incumbents, Chris John (D-LA), Ray LaHood (R-IL), and Nick Rahall (D-WV) were unopposed, although Rahall had an independent challenger, who got only 14 percent of the vote. The others were John Baldacci (D) with 76 percent of the vote in Maine, Pat Danner (D) with 71 percent of the vote in Missouri, and John Sununu (R) with 67 percent of the vote in New Hampshire.

Among the challengers, Phil Maloof (D) in New Mexico got 43 percent of the vote in his effort to unseat incumbent Heather Wilson (R), who had defeated Maloof in a highly publicized mid-term election this past summer; Leslie Touma (R) in Michigan got 42 percent of the vote in her bid to unseat Rep. Sander Levin (D); and Ansari, whose husband is a Muslim, got 41 percent of the vote for the seat vacated by Republican Jay Kim, who was defeated in the primary election by the eventual winner, Gary Miller (R).

Israel Loses Its Senator From New York

Of course, the big election news was the defeat in New York of Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R) by former Rep. Charles Schumer (D). On Middle East issues, D’Amato was Israel’s staunchest, and most unquestioning, supporter in the Senate.

He was on the wrong side of eight of the ten issues chosen for the Hall of Shame (see below), a record unbeaten in the Senate, and equaled in the House only by Michael Forbes (R-NY) and Jerry Weller (R-IL). Furthermore, with 18 years of seniority, D’Amato wielded considerable power in the Senate, and was chairman of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. He is perhaps best known as the author of the infamous Iran/Libya Sanctions Act, which not only was poor legislation, but also managed to enrage America’s European allies because it imposes a secondary boycott on foreign companies investing in Iran and Libya.

Schumer will start off with less clout, and so can presumably do less damage.

During the election, New Yorkers were treated to the spectacle of D’Amato, who is Catholic, trying to portray himself as being more Jewish than Schumer, who, indeed, is Jewish and resolutely pro-Israel. In fact, Schumer is not much of an improvement over D’Amato, except that he will start off with less clout, and so can presumably do less damage.

Schumer, who has represented his Brooklyn district since 1981, not only was a co-sponsor of the June 1997 resolution urging the Clinton administration to affirm publicly that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel, but it was he who introduced it in the House. He was also the co-chairman of the “Congressional Task Force to End the Arab Boycott,” and was a member of the “Peace Accord Monitoring Group,” which was formed after the Oslo agreement to publicize alleged Palestinian (and only Palestinian) violations of the agreement.

Some people said before the election that, regardless of the outcome, U.S. interests in the Middle East would benefit, because either D’Amato or Schumer would be out of the Congress. However, there are no signs that Schumer’s replacement in the House, Anthony Weiner (D), will be an improvement.

He is a Schumer protégé, and says he plans to follow in Schumer’s ideological footsteps. He began working in Schumer’s office during college as an intern. After graduating in 1985, he became Schumer’s press secretary, then legislative assistant, then director of Schumer’s Brooklyn office. He left in 1991 to run, successfully, for a seat on the New York City Council.

Halls of “Fame” and “Shame” Both Suffer Losses

The September issue of the Washington Report included a scorecard reporting the records of all the members of the 105th Congress on 10 issues selected as being important to Israel but contrary to U.S. interests in the Middle East. Those members who put Israel’s interests first on at least five of those issues were deemed to be in the magazine’s “Hall of Shame”; those who avoided toeing the Israeli line on all of the issues were called members of the “Hall of Fame.”

In the House, the “Fame” members outnumbered the “Shame” members 125 to 22. In the Senate, on the other hand, there were eight “Shame” senators compared with just six responsible “Fame” senators.

In the House, the Hall of Fame lost eight members: five retired; two were defeated for re-election; and one (Kim) lost in the primary. The five who retired were Reps. Harris Fawell (R-IL), Bill Hefner (D-NC), Joseph Kennedy (D-MA), Bob Smith (R-OR), and Louis Stokes (D-OH). All of their replacements were elected on local issues and have given little indication how they will view Middle East issues.

Only one of the replacements, Robin Hayes (R-NC, replacing Hefner), has shown any interest in international affairs. Hayes, who is an heir to the Cannon textile family, has indicated an interest in serving on the National Security and Agriculture Committees.

Stokes’ replacement, Stephanie Tubb Jones (D-OH), was one of the non-Arab Americans benefiting from the Arab-American voter mobilization effort sponsored by the Arab American Institute (AAI), and it is reasonable to assume that her record on Middle East issues will be similar to that of Stokes.

The two incumbent Hall of Fame representatives who were defeated in the November elections were Jay Johnson (D-WI) and Bill Redmond (R-NM). Their successful opponents also campaigned on domestic issues and gave little clue as to how they will see Middle East issues.

Johnson’s replacement, Mark Green (R-WI), and his wife have both taught in East Africa, but he is hoping to get assigned to the Agriculture Committee, which would be important to the dairy producers of his district.

Redmond will be replaced by one of the two new Udalls in the House, Tom Udall (D-NM), who is the son of former Democratic congressman from Arizona and U.S. Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall. Udall campaigned primarily on the issues of social security, health care, and education.

On the other side, two of the six incumbent representatives who were defeated were outspoken “Hall of Shame” members: Jon Fox (R-PA) and Michael Pappas (R-NJ). In Pennsylvania, Democrat Joe Hoeffel beat Fox in his fourth try for the 13th district seat in Congress. Hoeffel has been a county commissioner since 1991, and campaigned on the domestic issues of education, health care, and the environment. He has shown little interest in international issues. However, he was another beneficiary of AAI’s voter mobilization effort, which should at least make him more willing to listen to both sides of Middle East issues.

In New Jersey, Democrat Rush Holt upset Pappas, coming from 30 points behind in the polls in October to win by three points. Holt is a scientist, but with political and international credentials. He was physics and environment adviser to former Rep. Bob Edgar (D-PA), and then was a physics professor at Swarthmore College for eight years, before serving as a science adviser to the State Department. Most recently he has been the assistant director of Princeton University’s Plasma Physics Laboratory. (Another of his claims to fame is that he was a five-time “Jeopardy” game show champion.) He, too, campaigned on domestic, especially environmental, issues.

In the Senate, of the eight outgoing senators, only Dale Bumpers (D-AR) was in the “Hall of Fame.” His successor, Blanche Lincoln (R), was a member of the House for the two terms of the 104th Congress, and she showed little interest in the Middle East. Of the eight, only D’Amato was in the “Hall of Shame,” although Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID), who successfully ran for governor in Idaho, almost qualified, having put Israel ahead of U.S. interests in 4 of the 10 issues chosen.

Two of the incoming senators, in addition to Schumer, move over from the House: Jim Bunning (R-KY) and Michael Crapo (R-ID), and neither of them has shown much interest in Middle East issues, although both of them were co-sponsors of Schumer’s Jerusalem resolution.

In sum, the election results concerning U.S. Middle East policy can be said to mirror the overall results: no significant change.