- Senate leader Schumer aims to move a package within weeks
- AIPAC and other groups mobilizing grass roots lobbying
Pro-Israel groups are stepping up their congressional lobbying efforts, as senators prepare bipartisan legislation to provide funding to help the country in its war sparked by a Hamas attack.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and J Street are among groups reaching out to members of Congress, even as the House has remained mostly at a standstill without an elected Speaker. The push comes as about a dozen House Democrats introduced a resolution calling for a “ceasefire” backed by such outside organizations as the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Marshall Wittmann, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said in an email that the group’s primary focus now “is to ensure that America provides Israel the resources it needs as quickly as possible so it can permanently dismantle Hamas, which perpetrated the barbaric, terrorist attack on the Jewish state.”
AIPAC spent $2.2 million on federal lobbying from January through September of this year, according to filings with Congress.
It also started a political action committee last election cycle. It brought in nearly $19 million in donations during the 2022 campaigns, and so far this cycle had reported $10.5 million in donations through Aug. 31.
The group has sent large donations to the Republican National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, as well as donations to individual candidates on both sides of the aisle, Federal Election Commission reports show.
Zach C. Cohen in Washington also contributed to this story.