Other People's Money

...I get 96-plus percent of my money from in-state...

...I was upset by her remarks," notes one Jewish contributor who does not live in Texas and who has given generously to Johnson in the past...

...Time and again, Democratic congressional leaders, prodded by the Congressional Black Caucus, ensured the demise of such proposals...

...Money and ethnicity are sometimes correlated...

...That's nothing...

...A senior Senate staffer who spent much of the 1990s working on getting campaign finance reform passed says that members of the Congressional Black Caucus were "always very vocal that they had to have the ability to raise money not only from outside their district but outside their state...

...Johnson, after all, is not necessarily wrong in her essential observation: Jews from around the country did give thousands of dollars to Majette, because they found McKinney offensive...

...What's more surprising is that his sentiments, if not his language, are being echoed by black politicians who should know better...

...But the comments were inappropriate...

...A hardy perennial of the last decade's campaign finance reform debates was a proposal that candidates should have to raise at least half, if not more, of their funding from within their congressional districts...

...I like Eddie a lot...

...Majette raised $1.3 million, much of it from out-ofstate Jews...

...It wasn't just the CBC members, but they were the loudest voices...

...They did so again in September 1999, when the same proposal came up for a vote and was defeated again...

...He was supported by like-minded Democrats, but believe me they weren't all from East Flatbush and Brownsville...

...One followed, it might be observed, by most of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus now griping about McKin-ney's defeat, like Rep...

...House Speaker Tom Foley spelled it out pretty clearly in a speech at the National Press Club in September 1993, when the issue was just starting to percolate...

...Headed to New York City and Los Angeles, these Democrats "are looking for liberal Democratic money, and in many cases that is Jewish...

...Eddie Bernice Johnson...

...This same dynamic played out earlier this year in Alabama, with a young, impressive, black former prosecutor named Artur Davis defeating another congressional Israel-basher, the ethically challenged Rep...

...Since the New Deal, Jews have vot- ; ed for Democrats in presidential and congressional races at a rate of roughly 80 percent...

...Asked about the fact that former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young had withheld his support from McKinney's campaign, he replied, "That ain't nothing...

...In 1996, after making an anti-Semitic comment, he was forced to resign from his daughter's cam-paign—and she's no slouch herself when it comes to asinine babbling...

...No one keeps exact public tabs on such a thing—and money thankfully doesn't come with special earmarks delineating a contributor's race or religion—but knowledgeable insiders speculate that at least half of the individual contributions made to the Democratic party, and a third of those to the Republicans, come from Jews...

...And much of this money is going to black candidates...

...Stephanie Tubbs Jones, an African American from Ohio, suggested that a "commission be appointed to study the impact this provision would have on the ability of Members to raise sufficient funds when they represent low-income, border, and minority districts...

...Johnson's perceptions of those constituents...

...Jews...

...Ignore if you will that McKinney alienated a significant number of upwardly mobile black vot-ers—who were embarrassed by her speculation that President Bush had allowed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon so that his father's defense industry stocks would go up...

...The issue wasn't even much mentioned when the House and Senate took up the cause of the bills in the past year...

...she's a very nice person...

...These comments have not endeared her to some of her white colleagues...

...Jews have bought everybody...

...Johnson, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that blacks were concerned about Jews "from around the country putting millions into a race to unseat one of our leaders for expressing her right of free speech...

...BY JAKE TAPPER WHEN A TV CAMERA was shoved in the face of Georgia state representative Billy McKinney on August 20—the night that his daughter, Rep...

...Barney Frank said at the time...

...But urban members don't get 50 percent of their contributions from within state...

...When 'Jewish money' flooded in to [New York congressman] Major Owens, who had never had any success fund-raising, when he faced a tough primary in 2000 against a Caribbean-American city councilman, I didn't hear a lot of people complaining," the Democratic congressman says...

...Because we know as a fact that wealth is not equally distributed, and we put ethnic minority candidates at a disadvantage...

...So black candidates could continue to raise money from New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, home to the most reliable of liberal Democratic political contributors, a disproportionate number of whom are—yes, that's right—Jews...

...It was a non-starter...

...And if we now tell African-American candidates in the South . . . that the money has to be raised in-state, we are putting minority candidates at a significant disadvantage...

...Urging a no vote, Rep...

...Indeed, Reps...

...But the flyer couldn't have been more wrong—at least in terms of Jewish donors all over the country coming to the aid of black or dark-skinned political candidates...

...But forget for a moment that Cynthia McKinney lost to an impressive candidate, African-American former judge Denise Majette, who took a full 58 percent of the vote...

...She doesn't need me to say anything...

...Eddie has lots of Jewish friends," he says...

...Consider instead the issue of individuals of a particular ethnic group making financial contributions to support—or defeat—a politician from another area...

...Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas told the Miami Herald after McKinney's defeat...

...In the same way, Arab and Muslim Americans from around the country gave thousands of dollars to Mc-Kinney—whom they presumably perceive as representing their interests...

...Jake Tapper is a reporter and commentator in New York City...

...Shays later told me that the concept was one that he "could support...

...The donor says he even thought about giving Johnson a call, talking to her about her remarks, but then he realized his opinion would probably be superfluous...

...One Democratic operative slams Johnson's remarks since so many members of the CBC, "especially the old guard" like Reps...

...Billy McKinney's lip is nothing new...

...In fact, Artur Davis and Denise Majette were just following a tried-and-true script...

...No one would ever criticize an African American who decided "he wanted to defeat a white candidate who had said inflammatory things about the aspirations of African Americans or Africans," as this man feels McKinney did about Jews and Israelis...

...Let us be very clear," Rep...

...Con-gresswoman Johnson's comments are breathtakingly hypocritical...

...Cynthia McKinney, lost her Democratic primary race—he spewed venom like a challenged cobra...

...She told the Washington Post that "at the grass roots," there is a growing perception that "Jewish people are attempting to pick our leaders...

...i Charles Rangel of New York and John ; Lewis of Georgia, have decades-long j ties "with the Jewish community" and "lean heavily on the Jewish community" for money...

...But as Shays and Meehan's googoo ideals morphed into legislative realpolitik, they realized pretty quickly that Democrats would never support their efforts if they clung to that provision, because so many black members of Congress considered such money essential to their survival...

...Foley went on to say that "women and minorities" in particular "could in many cases not have been elected without the contributions that come from concerned citizens outside that immediate district or state...

...As the race heated up, a pro-Hilliard flyer of mysterious origin accused Davis, a Baptist, of being too close to Jews...

...I've been receiving angry calls from black voters all day saying they should rally against Jewish candidates," Rep...

...During the House debate on Shays-Meehan in July 1998, Meehan admitted that the bill would die if it included an amendment limiting contributions from outsiders in congressional campaigns...

...It certainly doesn't...

...Those numbers may be overstated— and they don't take PAC, corporate, or union largesse into account—but certainly Jews give political money and vote in numbers disproportionate to their share of the population...

...Davis must simply understand that Jews the world over have never come to the aid of black or dark skin [sic] people because it was the right thing to do...

...Frankly, that doesn't speak very highly of Ms...

...McKinney raised $700,000, much of it from out-of-state Arab and Muslim Americans...

...In the mid-1990s, as Republican Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Democrat Marty Meehan of Massachusetts began offering their first campaign finance reform efforts, an outside-the-district contribution limit was one of their central tenets...

...Earl Hilliard...

...Questioning whether "limiting contributions to within the state or inside the district" was a legitimate reform, Foley suggested that such a move "often is a great benefit to incumbents and a limitation to challengers...

...If that were somehow too subtle, McKinney spelled it out: "Jay, Eee, Double-U, Esssss," he hissed...

...McKinney, Hilliard, and Johnson all voted in 1998 against an amendment that would require 50 percent of a candidate's cash to come from "local individual residents...

...These are still, at the end of the day, black voters who are making the decisions, and black candidates getting elected, so I guess I'm not buying the whole 'gullible' argument, that whole congressional districts can be hoodwinked," says one Democratic congressman who asked not to be named...