AIPAC has announced its decision to discontinue directly endorsing and financially backing candidates — but the pro-Israel lobbying group appears to remain far from dormant.
The organization will cease directly endorsing and bankrolling candidates in that manner that it has been since 2021, the group announced on Wednesday. Instead, the group will be absorbed into its sister super PAC, the United Democracy Project PAC (UDP), according to Jewish Insider.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee AIPAC. It was incorporated in 1963. For ten years prior to that, it was known as the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs.
AIPAC Calls Itself America’s Pro-Israel Lobby
It has over three million members across the country in regional chapters working to, quote, expand and strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, end quote. You may know AIPAC as being one of the biggest and most recognizable donors to many of the members of Congress in your state, but contributing to campaigns is a relatively new function of the organization.
AIPAC Focus Change – Funding Elected Politicians, Now Campaigning Politicians Also
Before 2021, AIPAC did not endorse candidates nor give political contributions. Its focus was on lobbying elected officials, not actually electing officials. But in a dramatic shift in policy, AIPAC began directly funding candidates and spending big on races in 2021.
AIPAC Political Action Committee, AIPAC-PAC, filed something called a Statement of Organization with the FEC just in time for the 2022 election cycle, where it spent 50 million dollars, including both direct funds to candidates and outside spending, like TV advertisements.
AIPAC Donates to Both Parties and Record Breaking Donations 2022
According to AIPAC, it donated money to 365 candidates from both parties, including every single member of both Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress. 109 Republicans who voted against the certification of the 2020 presidential election in America received campaign contributions from AIPAC. All in all, AIPAC gave money to 342 members of the 118th Congress. The 2022 elections were the most expensive midterms in American history, with a total cost of 8.9 billion dollars spent.
Now, last year, AIPAC ranked 15th in total expenditure by a Political Action Committee, according to data collected by Open Secrets.
Take a Look at the Other Funders that AIPAC is Competing Against
ActBlue and WinRed, they are Democratic and Republican Party machines. Save America is Donald Trump’s money-raising operation. The conservative Club for Growth, Emily’s List, focuses on electing Democratic women to office.
All of the PACs on this list are massively domestic-focused ideological machines. AIPAC is the only organization in the top 20 whose interests are focused entirely on America’s relationship to a foreign government.
Let’s Take a Look at Who in Congress Benefits from AIPAC the Most in 2022
Here are the top 20 recipients in Congress, the House and the Senate, of AIPAC money in the 2022 midterm cycle, according to Open Secrets. They’re members of both parties. They come from every corner of the country, with varying levels of experience in Congress.
The Democrat Glenn Ivey of Maryland tops the list. He beat out fellow Democrat Donna Edwards in Maryland’s House primary, after AIPAC poured millions into pro-Ivey advertisements and mailers. Edwards was running for a second stint in Congress after serving during the Obama administration, where she voted present. Not even a no on a number of pro-Israel resolutions. So, the money poured in against her. Not even an endorsement from Nancy Pelosi could save her.
Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens unseated Democratic Representative Andy Levin. Here’s what Levin had to say about that. I’m really Jewish, but AIPAC can’t stand the idea that I am the clearest, strongest Jewish voice in Congress, standing for a simple proposition, that there’s no way to have a secure democratic homeland for the Jewish people, unless we achieve the political and human rights of the Palestinian people.
AIPAC spent four million dollars against Levin. He lost by 20 points. When Michigan Congresswoman Merceda Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, was censured by the House in early November over what some lawmakers called her rhetoric around the Israeli-Hamas war, 22 Democrats joined Republicans in that censure vote.
18 of those Democrats received campaign funds from AIPAC in 2022, totaling more than 1.1 million dollars. By the way, for these six of them, AIPAC was their top contributor. A growing list of progressive lawmakers who are vocal in their criticism of the government of Israel and its policies, and their support for Palestinian self-determination, have inspired AIPAC to spend even more.
The Cost of Being a Member of Congress Supporting GAZA 2024 – United Democracy Project UDP
As progressive lawmakers began calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Slate reported that insiders expect AIPAC‘s 2024 spending to hit 100 million dollars. In fact, United Democracy Project UDP, which is a pro-Israel super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, is already spending money on attack ads against Democratic representatives Jamal Bowman of New York and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania. Lee has already got a primary challenger, as do Cori Bush and Ilhan Omar.
Pro-Israel donors have already signaled that they are eager to primary Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Congresswoman Lee already overcame AIPAC‘s financial influence against her once. She tweeted criticisms of Israel‘s treatment of Palestinians in 2021, but as a candidate, she affirmed Israel’s right to exist, but that’s not good enough. AIPAC spent nearly three million dollars in the primary alone to defeat Lee, and they almost did. She beat Stephen Irwin, who is third on the list of money given to candidates by AIPAC in 2022, by less than a thousand votes. If Congresswoman Lee wants to keep her seat in 2024, she’s going to have to do it all over again. She joins me in studio after this break.
United Democracy Project Website
