What is important in this story, and was not reported anywhere else, is that
the House, with its new Democratic majority, described as progressive, had
precisely the same bill as the Republic Senate as its first order of business.
This is a bi-partisan bill to prevent people from boycotting Israeli products
from the Occupied Territories, and was blocked by the Democrats only, to show
disapproval of Trump's government shutdown.
Miriam
U.S. Senate’s First Bill, in the Midst of the Shutdown, Is a Bipartisan Defense
of the Israeli Government From Boycotts
Ryan Grim, Glenn Greenwald
January 5 2019, 4:09 p.m.
Chuck Schumer speaking at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., on
March 5, 2018. Photo: Sipa USA via AP
When each new Congress is gaveled into session, the chambers attach symbolic
importance to the first piece of legislation to be considered. For that reason,
it bears the lofty designation of H.R.1 in the House and S.1 in the Senate.
In the newly controlled Democratic House, H.R.1 — meant to signal the new
majority’s priorities — is an anti-corruption bill that combines election and
campaign finance reform, strengthening of voting rights, and matching public
funds for small-dollar candidates. In the 2017 Senate, the GOP-controlled S.1
was a bill, called the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” that, among other provisions,
cut various forms of corporate taxes.
But in the 2019 GOP-controlled Senate, the first bill to be considered — S.1 —
is not designed to protect American workers, bolster U.S. companies, or address
the various debates over border security and immigration. It’s not a bill to
open the government. Instead, according to multiple sources involved in the
legislative process, S.1 will be a compendium containing a handful of foreign
policy-related measures, the main one of which is a provision — with Florida’s
GOP Sen. Marco Rubio as a lead sponsor — to defend the Israeli government. The
bill is a top legislative priority for the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee.
In the previous Congress, that measure was known as S.170, and it gives state
and local governments explicit legal authority to boycott any U.S. companies
which themselves are participating in a boycott against Israel. As The
Intercept reported last month, 26 states now have enacted some version of a law
to punish or otherwise sanction entities that participate in or support the
boycott of Israel, while similar laws are pending in at least 13 additional
states. Rubio’s bill is designed to strengthen the legal basis to defend those
Israel-protecting laws from constitutional challenge.
Punishment aimed at companies that choose to boycott Israel can also sweep up
individual American citizens in its punitive net because individual contractors
often work for state or local governments under the auspices of a sole
proprietorship or some other business entity. That was the case with Texas
elementary school speech pathologist Bahia Amawi, who lost her job working with
autistic and speech-impaired children in Austin because she refused to promise
not to boycott goods produced in Israel and/or illegal Israeli settlements.
Thus far, the two federal courts that have ruled on such bills have declared
them to be unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment speech rights of
American citizens. “A restriction of one’s ability to participate in collective
calls to oppose Israel unquestionably burdens the protected expression of
companies wishing to engage in such a boycott,” U.S. District Court Judge Diane
Humetewa of Arizona wrote in her decision issuing a preliminary injunction
against the law in a case brought last September by the American Civil
Liberties Union on behalf of “an attorney who has contracted with the state for
the last 12 years to provide legal services on behalf of incarcerated
individuals,” but lost his contract to do so after he refused to sign an oath
pledging not to boycott Israel.
A similar ruling was issued in January of last year by a Kansas federal judge,
who ruled that state’s Israel oath law unconstitutional on the ground that “the
Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment protects the right to
participate in a boycott like the one punished by the Kansas law.” In that
case, a Mennonite who was a longtime public school teacher lost her independent
contract as a school curriculum developer after she followed her church’s
decision to boycott goods from Israeli companies in the occupied West Bank and
thus, refused to sign the oath required by Kansas law.
These are the Israel-defending, free speech-punishing laws that Rubio’s bill is
designed to strengthen. Although Rubio is the chief sponsor, his bill attracted
broad bipartisan support, as is true of most bills designed to protect Israel
and supported by AIPAC. Rubio’s bill last Congress was co-sponsored by several
Democrats who are still in the Senate: Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Joe Manchin
of West Virginia, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Gary Peters
and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
The support among Democrats for bills that would punish supporters of the
Boycott Israel movement is now particularly awkward given that two of the most
prominent newly elected Democratic members — Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and
Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first two Muslim women in Congress — are both
supporters of that Israel boycott.
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Last year, Cardin introduced a bill that would have criminalized participation
in international boycotts of Israel, and it was on the verge of passing with
significant bipartisan support until the ACLU sounded the alarm on how gravely
unconstitutional that bill was. Once The Intercept reported on the mechanics of
the bill and the covert effort to enact it with little attention, numerous
Democratic senators announced that they were reconsidering their support,
stalling the bill’s enactment. Though Cardin attempted to pass a watered-down
version in the lame-duck session, it is now Rubio’s Israel-defending bill that
has taken center stage even as the U.S. government is in the midst of a
shutdown for American citizens.
That the newly elected U.S. Congress would choose to prioritize protection of
this foreign nation — at the expense of the constitutional rights of American
citizens and over countless bills that would help Americans — was only one of
the stinging criticisms voiced to The Intercept by ACLU Senior Legislative
Counsel Kathleen Ruane:
In the midst of a partial government shutdown, Democratic and Republican
senators have decided that one of their first orders of business next week
should be to sneak through a bill that would weaken Americans’ First Amendment
protections. The bill, Combatting BDS Act, encourages states to adopt the very
same anti-boycott laws that two federal courts blocked on First Amendment
grounds. The legislation, like the unconstitutional state anti-boycott laws it
condones, sends a message to Americans that they will be penalized if they dare
to disagree with their government. We therefore urge senators to vote no on the
Combatting BDS Act next week.
With the seven Democratic co-sponsors, the bill would have the 60 votes it
needs to overcome a filibuster. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. —
who supported Cardin’s far more draconian bill of last year and is one of the
Senate’s most reliable AIPAC loyalists — also plans to support the Rubio bill,
rather than whip votes against it, sources working on the bill said. Schumer’s
spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
If the bill does pass the Senate, the major question will be whether the
Democratic House — now led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime Israel advocate
but also as a supporter of the First Amendment — takes it up and passes it into
law.