When President Clinton and the Republican Congress finish riding the wave of victory, how they govern will strike the very core of American Jewish life.
The White House and Congress have promised to save Medicare and Medicaid from going broke; Jewish social service agencies depend heavily on those entitlement funds, taking in more than $2 billion last year alone.
Clinton and GOP leaders have pledged to enact campaign finance reform; Jews gave more than $25 million to fund this year’s election, sparking concerns of diminished influence under a changed system.
The president and Democratic leaders have vowed to revisit welfare reform; Jewish charities fear that the recently enacted welfare legislation will force them to step in to fill the void for the needy kicked off the rolls.
With so much at stake, Jewish activists are asking which Clinton will emerge: the centrist one who signed welfare reform that ended the federal guarantee of benefits for poor Americans or the more liberal Clinton who fought to his near- political death for sweeping health-care reform?
Overwhelmingly, they believe that Clinton the centrist is here to stay.
“President Clinton is going to have to govern from the center,” said Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. “He, like all other presidents, is going to want to make history. That means governing to get things done.”
The larger questions loom over the direction of Congress, where on some issues, such as welfare and immigration reform, the Jewish community appears ready to cooperate.
On other issues, however, such as school prayer, a balanced budget amendment and the foreign aid program, Jews are preparing to dig in their heels.
Clinton moved to the political center after the 1994 Democratic election debacle that gave the Republicans control of Congress, a position they cemented in Tuesday’s election.
But in so doing, the president drew the wrath of many of his loudest supporters in the Jewish community and faced off against many Jewish activists who remain particularly bitter that he signed welfare reform legislation.
“The compromises that he’s made on the economic and social justice issues are going to result in real hardships and an increased burden on the Jewish community to fill the tears in the safety net,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
However, any anger from the Jewish community toward Clinton for his move to the political right was not evident in early exit polls.
Television networks who share nationwide exit polling from the Voter News Service reported that Clinton received 80 percent of the Jewish vote. His Republican opponent, Bob Dole, received 16 percent, and Ross Perot received about 3 percent.
The American Jewish Congress, which conducted its own exit polls, found that 83 percent of the Jewish vote went to Clinton, compared with 13 percent for Dole and 2 percent each to Perot and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
The level of support for Clinton roughly matches his showing in the 1992 election, reaffirming a long-standing pattern that American Jews vote overwhelmingly — and disproportionately — Democratic.
When voters swept Republican majorities into the House and Senate two years ago, the political upheaval turned Jewish Washington on its head.
Jewish groups, which tend to have a more liberal bent, largely went from proposing initiatives to playing defense against legislation they opposed, such as welfare and immigration reform.
This time around, little will change when the new Congress opens its doors in January and Clinton takes the oath of office for the second time.
But many of the activists who failed to stop legislation they opposed before say they have learned their lessons and are ready to work with former foes in shaping legislation they once sought to scuttle.
For the representatives of Jewish groups who work day in and day out in the nation’s capital, this means a new approach: starting some legislative fires instead of focusing on putting so many out.
“After 1994 we fought to try to take items off the table,” Diana Aviv, director of the Washington Action Office of the Council of Jewish Federations, said, citing immigration reform and aspects of the welfare overhaul.
Now, she said, “we know there is an interest in bipartisan and not revolutionary change. We’ll be a part of that.”
Said Lynn Lyss, a longtime Jewish activist who served as co-chair of the Clinton-Gore Jewish Leadership Council: “We need to get out there early and make our positions clear.”
At the same time, however, Jewish groups are preparing for the expected assault of legislation that could dramatically impact their missions.
“If the president sticks to his commitment to balance the budget by 2003, he has got to touch entitlement programs. Medicare and Medicaid are on the table,” Aviv said.
“This is a battle we’ll have to face when we come to it.”
Most Jewish groups oppose a balanced budget amendment, believing that it would lead to immediate cuts in federal programs that serve the poor and disadvantaged.
“A balanced budget amendment would complicate the president’s promise to revisit the portions of the welfare bill that deal with legal immigrants,” said Aviv, referring to the provisions that cut legal immigrants from the welfare rolls.
“It’s going to be hard enough to get the new Congress to give the savings back,” she said, citing the billions of dollars saved under the proposal.
Republicans, meanwhile, predict that the Jewish community will have a tough time advocating its positions in the new Congress.
“Republicans emerged with strong vindication and validation for the core foundations of the Republican agenda,” said Matt Brooks, executive director of the National Jewish Coalition, the Republican group.
“What I have concluded about our ability as a community to advance our causes is hampered by the perception that the Jewish community is against the Republican Congress,” he said.
When it comes to the White House, it’s a different story, Lyss said.
“We need to talk to President Clinton in a way to remind him that we have been supportive of him for the last four years. We hope he will listen to our concerns.”
Some activists argue that campaign finance reform is the biggest threat they need to take to the president.
“The campaign process has given the Jewish community the access to make a case that we otherwise would not have the chance to present,” said Chuck Brooks, executive director of the National PAC, the largest of dozens of pro-Israel PACs.
“Reform being considered that would eliminate PACs and out- of-state contributions to candidates would have a terrible effect on our community,” Brooks said.
Despite concern over what such reforms could mean for the future, access to the 105th Congress appears secure.
That access is attributed to a combination of political activism, individual campaign contributions and pro-Israel PAC money.
“We have the relationships, now we need to put teeth into the ones that are new relationships and strengthen the relations with those who will likely become the next generation of activist congressional leaders,” said Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, does not give political contributions.
As part of that outreach, AIPAC officials have met with more than 600 candidates for federal office this year, including the entire freshman class of the 105th Congress.
As a result, Israel remains on solid footing — both because of a solidly pro- Israel president and Congress, Kohr said.
Meanwhile, Jewish activists are increasingly concerned about the emergence of a push for school prayer on the national agenda.
“We’re likely to see the Congress take up where they left off on church-state issues and school prayer,” said Jason Isaacson, the Washington-based director of government and international affairs of the American Jewish Committee.
Said Saperstein: “The religious right clearly had an impact on the makeup of Congress. This is where the battle will be fought.”
But while Jews prepare for battles, their buzzwords this election week are compromise and bipartisanship.
“I hope everybody will be more for moderation, both the Congress and the Jewish community,” Lyss said. “I hope we can get back to an even keel.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
