AIPAC claims a victory in Supreme Court ruling

WASHINGTON, June 2 (JTA) — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee claimed victory this week in a 9-year-old legal standoff with several staunch critics of U.S. policy toward Israel. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling issued Monday, made it highly unlikely that the pro-Israel lobby will have to disclose information about its membership and expenditures — a goal that has been sought by six former politicians and diplomats. Alleging that AIPAC made campaign contributions and expenditures on behalf of political candidates, the plaintiffs have been urging the Federal Election Commission to regulate AIPAC as a political committee — a designation that would force the organization to file public reports about all of its receipts and expenditures. But in a case being closely watched by groups that lobby in Washington, the high court chose not to rule on the status of AIPAC and instead sent the case back to the FEC. Thus the battle is not necessarily over, and the plaintiffs have vowed to press ahead with the case. AIPAC, for its part, defines itself as a membership organization and registered lobby on behalf of legislation affecting U.S.-Israel relations — with complete freedom to communicate with its members on politics and elections. The plaintiffs in the case included James Akins, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and former U.S. Rep. Paul Findley (R-Ill.), who has referred to the federal government as “Israeli-occupied territory” and blamed AIPAC for defeating his 1982 re-election bid. Akins, Findley and four other former government officials who have worked to undermine U.S. support for Israel filed suit in 1989 in an effort to convince the FEC to scrutinize AIPAC’s finances. In 1992, the election commission found that AIPAC spent money in an effort to influence congressional elections. But it decided not to designate AIPAC as a political action committee because it said that was not the group’s “major purpose.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the FEC’s major purpose test in 1996 and held that AIPAC should be classified as a political committee because it spent more than $1,000 a year on campaigns. According to law, a political committee is defined as “any committee” that receives or spends more than $1,000 per year for the purpose of “influencing any election for federal office.” This definition includes political action committees, which raise funds to support political candidates. AIPAC officials say the group does not make political contributions. In its Supreme Court appeal, FEC vs. Akins, the FEC argued that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case; the commission argued that they had not suffered some “injury in fact” that the court could remedy. The justices, however, ruled this week that the plaintiffs were entitled to bring the lawsuit — a move that opened the door to future lawsuits against the FEC by voters who claim the commission has not adequately enforced the financial disclosure requirements imposed by federal law on certain political groups. But the court did not rule on the merits of the claim against AIPAC, instead sending the dispute back to the FEC. In doing so, the justices left undecided the core issue that spawned the lawsuit: whether AIPAC should be considered a political committee subject to federal campaign regulations on spending and reporting. The FEC will now decide that question based on new developments in election law and new regulations for distinguishing political committees from membership organizations. AIPAC was not a direct party in the case before the court, but the group filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking that the complaint be dismissed or that the case go back to the FEC. “We’re very pleased that the Supreme Court agreed with our view of the case,” said Thomas Hungar, a lawyer representing AIPAC. “We think” the FEC “will be forced to recognize what AIPAC has argued all along — that it’s a membership organization” that has the constitutional right to communicate with its members on any subject. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority opinion for the court, which was joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O’Connor and Clarence Thomas dissented. In sending the dispute back to the FEC, Breyer said, “The FEC should proceed to determine whether or not AIPAC’s expenditures qualify as ‘membership communications’ and thereby fall outside the scope of ‘expenditures’ that could qualify it as a political committee.” He said new FEC rules defining membership organizations “could significantly affect” that determination. In explaining the decision to return the case to the FEC, Breyer said, “If the FEC decides that AIPAC’s activities fall within the membership’s communications exception, the matter will become moot.” A spokesman for the FEC had no comment on the court’s ruling or what action the FEC might take, saying the commission’s attorneys were still studying this week’s decision. One of the plaintiffs, Andrew Killgore, said his group does not plan to give up. “We still hope that AIPAC will eventually have to reveal its finances as all political committees have to. That’s the goal we had from the beginning,” said Killgore, former ambassador to Qatar and the publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a publication that is highly critical of U.S. support for Israel. Some legal observers, meanwhile, say the issue of AIPAC’s status remains wide open because the FEC has yet to finalize its new regulations for membership organizations. In addition, these observers say, any decision the FEC makes could now be subject to further litigation. “As much as I hate to rain on AIPAC’s party,” said Marc Stern, a lawyer with the American Jewish Congress, “it may not be tomorrow or the next day or even the next month before this matter is out of the way.”