Election ’96: the Jewish Face of Congress Will See Very Few Changes

In the little-changed 105th Congress, the Jewish face will have a familiar look, too.

Tuesday’s election results could boost Jewish representation in the House of Representatives by one seat. In the Senate, Jewish lawmakers maintained the same minyan of 10.

With the exception of one contest that remained too close to call, the other 21 Jewish incumbents seeking re-election in the House won their races, most by wide margins. Of 19 Jewish challengers vying for House seats, three emerged with victories.

With the departure of two Jewish House members, Jewish lawmakers will possibly number 25 pending the outcome of the undecided race in Pennsylvania, which is being recounted.

In the Senate, four Jewish challengers for the Senate all lost their election bids, while the two Jewish incumbent senators, Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), both sailed to easy victories.

The other eight Jewish senators were not up for re-election this year.

Meanwhile, voters returned to office dozens of non-Jewish incumbents considered longtime friends of Israel and other Jewish interests.

At the same time, a handful of candidates aligned with far-right elements and eyed warily by the Jewish community won return trips to Capitol Hill.

In one of the most closely watched Senate races, Wellstone defeated former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz in a rerun of the 1990 matchup between the two Jewish candidates.

Local Jewish officials appeared pleased with the results.

“We’re returning to the Senate a friend of Israel and someone who champions many of the same social justice issues which our Jewish communal agencies are fighting for, particularly in welfare reform areas,” said Jay Tcath, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Wellstone was the only senator facing re-election this year who voted against the controversial welfare reform law recently enacted.

In another bitterly fought Senate race that appeared to be a dead heat leading up to Election Day, Rep. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) defeated his Jewish opponent, Rep. Dick Zimmer (R-N.J.) by an 11-point margin.

New Jersey’s Jewish voters favored Torricelli over Zimmer 74 percent to 26 percent, according to an exit poll conducted by the New Jersey region of the American Jewish Congress.

“The New Jersey Jewish vote has been consistently Democratic,” said Phil Baum, executive director of AJCongress.

Despite the candidacy of Zimmer, a Jewish Republican who has shown strong support for Israel, Baum said, Jewish voters ultimately backed the seven-term congressman because of his equally steadfast support for Israel and because he better reflected the views of the Jewish community on important social issues, including welfare and immigration policy.

In the contest for Bob Dole’s old Senate seat in Kansas, Rep. Sam Brownback (R- Kan.) defeated Jewish Democratic challenger Jill Docking.

Another Jewish candidate, Republican Nancy Mayer of Rhode Island, also lost her bid for the Senate to John Reed.

In the House, the new Jewish faces will be Democrats Robert Wexler of Florida, Steve Rothman of New Jersey and Brad Sherman of California.

In other House highlights:

In Pennsylvania, the nation’s tightest House race left incumbent Jon Fox (R- Pa.) and his Democratic challenger, Joseph Hoeffel, still waiting for final results.

With 100 percent of the Philadelphia suburban region precincts reporting, Fox, the only Jewish member of the 104th Congress’ freshmen class, clung to a 10- vote lead. A recount was scheduled for Friday.

In that race, Hoeffel attacked Fox for scoring a 100 percent rating from the Christian Coalition and tried to paint him as a disciple of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

Fox, who serves on the House International Relations Committee, touted his record of support for Israel, as well as his support for welfare reform, health-care reform and spending reform.

In Georgia, despite running in a radically redrawn district with a large white and Republican population, incumbent Democrat Cynthia McKinney won handily over Republican John Mitnick.

The contest between the first black woman elected to Congress from Georgia and her Jewish challenger evoked considerable racial acrimony, with McKinney’s father calling Mitnick a “racist Jew” and Mitnick accusing McKinney of cozying up to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Jews in McKinney’s district “developed an intense mistrust of her and she will need to begin the healing process so that she is able to effectively represent the 7 percent of her population which is Jewish,” said Sherry Frank, southeast area director of the American Jewish Committee.

Meanwhile, several races involving non-Jewish candidates with close ties to the religious right and other controversial views produced mixed results:

In Texas, voters returned former Republican Congressman Ron Paul to the House after a 12-year absence.

Paul has published numerous anti-Israel and racist articles over the last decade. In 1987, for example, he wrote, “It’s time that Israel stopped running American foreign policy and draining American taxpayers’ wallets.”

Paul was singled out by Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, when he was asked whether there was anyone the Jewish community should “watch out for.”

Kohr was responding to a question raised Wednesday during a conference call of community leaders, organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, on the impact of the elections.

Also in Texas, Rep. Steve Stockman and his Democrat challenger, Nick Lampson, both failed to muster more than 50 percent of the vote, throwing the contest into a December runoff.

A Republican freshman, Stockman has come under fire from Jewish groups for his ties to the militia movement and for holding views they say run roughshod over the separation of church and state.

In Arizona, incumbent Republican J.D. Hayworth, a self-described champion of the Republican agenda and supporter of school prayer, won a decisive victory.

Republican incumbents Andrea Seastrand of California, who called for an end to the separation of church and state, and Frank Cremeans of Ohio, who opposed government bans on endorsing religion, were both rebuffed by voters.