Supreme Court-AIPAC 3

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Rather than forcing the FEC to comply with the appeals court decision, Clinton administration Solicitor General Walter Del-linger now has appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court on behalf of the FEC. Aside from its implications for U.S. foreign policy, the case has important domestic implications at a time of public pressure to reform the campaign finance laws, which most Americans feel give special interests the power to override constituent wishes with their representatives in Congress.

A group of primarily Republican politicians, led by Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a tobacco-growing state, defend the status quo by equating the injection of large quantities of unregulated "soft money" into the system with "free speech." Their argument is that in the television age it takes a great deal of money to buy enough television advertising to overcome an incumbent's built-in advantages. Ironically, the Clinton administration's appeal of the AIPAC decision aligns it with the "money equals free speech" philosophy articulated by Senator McConnell, who also is a major recipient of donations from the AIPAC-founded pro-Israel PACs.

In considering the FEC appeal, the Supreme Court will be dealing with two issues. Washington attorney Dan Schember, who with attorney Abdeen Jabara represents the complainants, has pointed out that under the present FEC ruling a group talking in $1 million a year and contributing it all to candidates must report every transaction, but a group that takes in $100 million and also contributes $1 million to candidates need not reveal its financial records because its "major purpose" is not political. "The amount matters;' Schember told The Washington Times on Tune 16. "Whether the million dollars has the potential to corrupt does not relate to how many other millions the organization has.

He charged that "AIPAC routinely has made undisclosed campaign contributions" and exercises undue influence through a cycle of lobbying and contributions that "is at the root of that influence."

The point was tellingly argued in Schember's brief for the case which pointed out:

"The FEC's test exempts organizations that flood every election with millions of dollars of contributions, provided they spend many more millions of dollars for other purposes~such as lobbying for favors from the officials whom the campaign contributions helped to elect."

The other issue the Supreme Court probably will re-examine is whether the seven complainants, now reduced to six by the death of Kennedy administration Assistant Secretary of State George Ball, who also was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Johnson administration, had "standing" to pursue the suit. The two dissenting judges in
the previous 8 to 2 appeals court decision in favor of the complainants based their dissent not on the merits of the complaint but on whether the complainants had such standing.

Surviving complainants are former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James E. Akins; Former U.S. Information Agency chief inspector Richard H. Curtiss; Paul Findley, former Republican member from Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives (and the subject of two major AIPAC campaigns to deny him re-election in 1980 and 1982); Adm. Robert J. Hanks, former commander of the U.S. Navy Middle East Force; former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar Andrew I. Killgore; and former U.S. military officer Orin Parker who, for many years, was president of AMIDEAST, a nonprofit organization that conducts student counseling and educational and training activities in Middle East countries with financing from USAID, USIA's cultural exchange program, and the host countries themselves. Former Detroit civil rights activist Abdeen Jabara is the attorney who in 1988 prepared much of the documentation for this long-running suit.

Reached in New York, where he now practices public interest law, Jabara said: "What the Supreme Court decides regarding the 'standing' of the plaintiffs, will reflect whether or not the justices believe Congress intended American voters to have access to information concerning contributors to campaigns and coordinated expenditures on behalf of candidates." What he might have added is that under present campaign fiance laws those contributors, and the lobbying organizations that coordinate their efforts, have become the major players in deciding who represents the American people in Congress and in the White House.