Congress

As the Tea Party wave sweeps across the nation’s political waters, Jewish Republicans are increasingly worried that the movement could wash away their hopes of winning over Jewish voters — even as leaders of the insurgency talk about expanded outreach to minorities, including Jews.

His own party leaders are repudiating the Republican candidate seeking to unseat 11-term incumbent Rep. Nita Lowey in Westchester, and the Anti-Defamation League is calling him a “white supremacist with anti-Semitic overtones.”

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society urged Congress not to cut off funding for Supplemental Security Income, which helps elderly and disabled refugees and other immigrants pay for food and shelter.

SSI funding will run out Sept. 30. HIAS urged Congress to extend funding because many refugees who are Jewish and from the former Soviet Union and Iran rely on the money for food and other necessities.

The Rocky Wake Of Resignation: Congress After Livingston

Rep. Bob Livingston’s stunning announcement on Saturday that he will not become the next speaker of the House, after all — indeed, that he will leave Congress sometime in the next few months — rocked a capital that was already reeling from the bitter debate over the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and another round of military action against Iraq.

The good news for American Jewish groups that lobby Congress on an array of domestic and foreign policy issues is that the insurgents who forced the retirement of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in the wake of last week’s GOP election debacle may bring a more bipartisan, pragmatic approach to the GOP leadership.
But that’s also the bad news.

Lobbying Against Interim Statehood

As President George W. Bush struggled to put together yet another vision for ending Israeli-Palestinian violence and providing what he has called a political “horizon” for the Palestinians, Israel’s friends in Congress scrambled to put the brakes on the expected administration initiative.
With a big boost from pro-Israel groups, lawmakers zeroed in on one issue: preventing administration support for an interim Palestinian state.