Schumer delays action on antisemitism bill despite bipartisan House approval

A bipartisan antisemitism bill approved overwhelmingly in the House is going nowhere fast in the Senate.

Prompted by the Washington Examiner on Wednesday about the legislation’s fate in the upper chamber, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made no commitment to put it up for a vote but also did not declare it dead.

The New York Democrat noted there were roadblocks from both parties last week to fast-track the bill and said leaders were still searching for options that would avoid eating up large amounts of floor time to run out the procedural clock.

“There were objections on both sides,” Schumer said. “We’re trying to figure out the best way to move forward.”

The Senate is focused this week on meeting a Friday deadline for a must-pass federal aviation bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for another five years.

The antisemitism bill would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism and expand its meaning for the Department of Education to more easily enforce anti-discrimination laws. The measure, dubbed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, passed 320-91 in the House last week.

However, it has faced opposition from Republicans and Democrats in the Senate over free speech concerns that it could allow language critical of Israel to be too easily considered antisemitic.

With anti-Israel demonstrations at college campuses, some of which turned violent and antisemitic, no longer front-page news as law enforcement has largely clamped down on protesters, the Senate faces diminished political pressure to act urgently.

Republicans have panned the administration and demanded answers from President Joe Biden over reports it’s withholding ammunition to Israel as the U.S. ally mounts a new invasion in southern Gaza in a region that has become a major hub for Palestinian refugees.

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In a speech paying remembrance to the Holocaust on Tuesday, Biden restated his “commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, security of Israel and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad even when we disagree.”

“Unfortunately,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Wednesday, “we’ve seen then that iron bend under the heat of domestic political pressure from his party’s anti-Israel base and the campus communists who decided to wrap themselves in the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah.”