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Helms does not admit AIPAC's role in his drastic change of attitude, which includes supporting congressional maneuvers to provide Israel its lion's share of U.S. aid without members having to participate in an "up or down" (yes or no) vote on the issue. However, when less hypocritical legislators are asked why they participate in such actions, which their constituents certainly would not tolerate if they understood them, most simply reply: "The Jepsen facton" This refers to the defeat of Repub lican Senator Roger Jepsen of Iowa in 1984, for which AIPAC officers also took credit. In presenting their initial case in January 1989 against AIPAC and 27 of the more than 35 political action committees (PACs) formed by its directors, the complainants submitted written evidence that AIPAC had closely managed contributions to candidates both through telephoned "advice" to the PACs and also through a tightly held "green book," which informed PAC directors and trusted AIPAC members which candidates were to be supported and which opposed, who faced tough opponents or close elections, how much each had raised at the beginning of each election cycle, and how much he or she would need by its end.
On a Friday afternoon on the last work my day of 1990, in an obvious move to avoid media attention, the FEC notified the 27 PACs that they no longer were under scrutiny. Some U~S. Jewish weekly newspapers reported this decision in a way that implied that the "case against AIPAC" had been dismissed. The widely read Washington Jewish Week even quoted an unnamed AIPAC official as saying how thankful he was that "the worst nightmare" in AIPAC's long history was ended. When there was no further word from the FEC on the case against AIPAC itself{ and U.S. Jewish weeklies began reporting that it was AIPAC's refusal to open its financial records to FEC investigators that had forced them to drop the case, the original seven complainants filed a new suit against the FEC demanding that it rule on the original complaint against AIPAC. The FEC complied by issuing a finding that AIPAC had "likely crossed the $1,000 threshold" defined in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 as the maximum amount an organization or individual can donate to each candidate in each election without becoming a "political committee" subject to financial disclosure laws. However, the FEC said, since such election activities were not "the major purpose of AIPAC," it would not be required to comply with the disclosure laws that require all political committees, from PACs to Republican and Democratic national and state party committees, to reveal the source of every contribution of $200 or more, and also exactly how their funds are spent. The complainants then filed a third complaint, saying that the FEC erred in not enforcing its own ruling that AIPAC was functioning as a political committee. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia first found 2 to 1 against fifty complainants, who then sought and were granted a hearing before the entire appeals court. This hearing resulted in an 8 to 2 decision on Dec. 6, 1996 in favor of the complaint, which called upon the FEC, which is composed of an equal number of Republican and Democratic political appointees and thus often seems unable to act decisively in controversial matters, to enforce its own ruling that AIPAC is a political committee by requiring AIPAC to comply with federal disclosure laws. In seeking to evade those laws, AIPAC attorneys have charged that compliance will impose an intolerable burden on the 150- employee organization that claims 50,000 members and whose budget is said to be between $10 million and $16 million. In fact the requirement to disclose the source of every donation of $200 or more, and how the organization's money is spent, is less than the obligations imposed by the Internal Revenue Service on all non-profit organizations. The difference is that information disclosed to the FEC goes into the public domain, while information disclosed to the IRS remains confidential and beyond the reach of investigative journalists. |
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