Dem
51
GOP
49
Next week, House Democrats will probably bail Mike Johnson out on the motion to vacate. Yesterday, they bailed him out on the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a bill that is ostensibly supposed to help quell some of the tensions on the nation's campuses (now including UCLA... ). The vote was 320 (187 R, 133 D) to 91 (21 R, 70 D).
On its face, it is hard to see the bill as a serious attempt to improve on the current situation. What it primarily does is tell the Department of Education that when it enforces federal anti-discrimination laws, it must use the definition of antisemitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). DoE enforcement actions of this sort are somewhat uncommon, and take a long time to play out. So, it is rather difficult to see how the legislation, even if it becomes law, could plausibly interact with what's currently happening on the campuses. Put another way, this looks a lot like grandstanding, and doing something just so the politicians can say they did something.
There's also a more nefarious interpretation of the bill. The IHRA definition of antisemitism is fairly unremarkable and unobjectionable:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
However, that is only the definition part of the definition. The IHRA then goes on to list 11 different behaviors that constitute antisemitism, many of them involving the state of Israel. For example, "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor" is deemed to be antisemitic. So, adopting this definition could serve to stifle certain types of dissent, most obviously criticism of the Israeli government. This specific concern is why many of the 91 "nays" voted nay, including Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who is the most senior Jewish member of the House.
There is one other thing worth noting. An alternative bill, with bipartisan support, has been put forward by Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), and it looks considerably more substantive (though it also embraces the IHRA definition of antisemitism). What Manning's bill, which is called the Combat Antisemitism Act (CAA), would do is empower the White House to appoint a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; that person would carry the rank of an ambassador. The CAA would also create an intra-agency task force to look at solutions for combating antisemitism and would add a Department of Education monitor responsible for overseeing anti-antisemitism efforts on the nation's college campuses. Johnson refused to bring this bill to the floor, leading some Democrats to accuse him of trying to divide their caucus, rather than trying to find solutions to the current antisemitism problem.
Now the Antisemitism Awareness Act will head to the Senate, where a Jewish fellow will decide whether or not it gets a vote. If Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) decides to kill the measure, his being Jewish will probably let him get away with that (not so for, say, the waspy Mitch McConnell, R-KY). If the Majority Leader decides it's a worthwhile bill, however, then it will likely pass the Senate easily, and Joe Biden will probably have little choice but to sign it. Thus far, Schumer has not tipped his hand, and so nobody knows what he'll do. (Z)