As Congress approaches its summer recess, and with just a few weeks in session left before the 2024 election, some in the Jewish community are growing concerned that two major antisemitism bills, the Antisemitism Awareness Act and the Countering Antisemitism Act, appear stuck in Congress without a clear path forward.

The bills face obstacles and opposition from a variety of fronts, according to conversations with numerous sources on and off Capitol Hill, including a lack of action by Senate leadership on AAA — which passed the House earlier this year — and the leaders of both chambers on CAA.

AAA, codifying the Department of Education’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, passed the House with a bipartisan 320-91 vote earlier this year, but stalled in the Senate after an initial bid to fast-track its passage. It has 31 sponsors in the Senate — 16 Republicans, 14 Democrats and one independent, and was reintroduced in April. It’s supported by a large number of Jewish groups, although others oppose it over its inclusion of the IHRA definition.

CAA, introduced in early April, would create a permanent White House post dedicated to combating antisemitism, along with a range of other steps aiming to codify and expand the administration’s national strategy to combat antisemitism. The Senate version has 31 sponsors — 15 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one independent; the House version has 54, including 29 Democrats and 25 Republicans. It’s supported by more than 60 Jewish groups across the ideological spectrum.

Yet, despite strong support inside and outside of Congress, including from most of the mainstream Jewish organizations, each bill faces significant hurdles in Congress that are leaving the passage of either or both bills uncertain, and congressional leaders hesitant to act.

The Anti-Defamation League is backing both bills. “We view both CAA and AAA as complementary efforts needed to come together in this moment of great peril, and we call on Congress to step up, meet this moment, and immediately pass these important legislative initiatives,” said Dan Granot, the group’s director of government relations. “If Congress ends the year without tackling the urgent issue of antisemitism with meaningful, broad and comprehensive legislation, they will have failed the Jewish community when we need them most.”

An initial, longshot attempt to pass AAA in the Senate shortly after it passed the House failed amid multiple objections to the bill from both sides of the aisle.

One source told Jewish Insider that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently met with Jewish leaders about the bill, and said he was working to resolve those objections — but given strident opposition to IHRA from some on the left and right, that could be a difficult prospect and potentially impossible.

Schumer did not provide comment for this story.

The source said Jewish leaders pushed Schumer to bring the bill to the floor for votes and put senators on the record, at which point it would likely see strong bipartisan support. 

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, has mounted an increasingly aggressive public campaign for a vote in the Senate. He said that Schumer’s “refusal to bring it to the floor for fear of dividing the Democrats is shameful, especially at a time when antisemitism is running rampant across our country.”

In addition to progressives who warn the AAA would restrict criticism of Israel, the bill has also seen strident opposition from conservative Republicans over free speech concerns, as well as objections to language in the IHRA definition’s related examples describing accusations that Jews killed Jesus as antisemitic.

A source familiar with the bill said that conservative supporters of AAA were caught off guard by strong backlash to the legislation from the right, and some Republicans are now afraid of alienating that portion of their base, while lawmakers on the left fear the ire of progressives.

The source said that congressional leaders might pursue other avenues once it becomes clear that some of the objections to the bill cannot be cleared. 

“We at the Orthodox Union, along with all the other major American Jewish organizations, would like to see the Antisemitism Awareness Act brought to the Senate floor for a vote as soon as possible,” Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, said. “It passed the House with an overwhelming bipartisan vote and there’s really no reason not to move it along in the Senate.”

Sources said that the most likely path to passage for the AAA and CAA might be if they’re packaged together — but the CAA, too, faces hurdles.

The CAA, which has become a key plank of House Democrats’ proposal for combating antisemitism, has continued to collect sponsors in each chamber, in a bipartisan fashion, but has seen no movement either in the Senate or the House.

An individual familiar with the situation told JI the legislation will likely need to move in the Senate first, and that House leadership is less inclined to take action on it — viewing AAA as a significant step to address antisemitism — particularly until the Senate passes AAA.

The source said chairs and staff on key committees of jurisdiction in the Democratic Senate and the Republican House have also lodged objections to the bill, making it less likely that the leaders of either chamber will bring the bill directly to a full-chamber vote in the near term. 

But another source said those objections may not be immutable, noting that House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) had initially objected to AAA before allowing it to come to a floor vote. Jordan didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In the House, conversations about moving the bill forward with both House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) thus far have not borne fruit, Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), its lead House sponsor, told JI.

“I think we can pass two bills on an issue that is frightening not just to the Jewish community, but undermines our democracy,” Manning said. “I think it is worth investing the time to pass a second bill that contains provisions that would increase our ability to combat antisemitism.”

Johnson did not provide comment for this story.

Manning and two Republican co-sponsors of the bill requested a meeting with Johnson in April to talk about legislation on antisemitism, including moving CAA directly to a floor vote — the same procedure applied for AAA — but the request was not granted. 

Manning said she’s working to continue to expand the cosponsor list for the bill in hopes of increasing pressure on House leadership.

“They are not taking a bipartisan approach, and I think that it shows that they’re not really serious about combating antisemitism,” Manning alleged. “They’re serious about making it a political issue, but they’re not serious about really addressing the problem.”

The bill has been assigned to nearly half a dozen committees in the House, making it difficult to move forward under regular procedures in a timely fashion. In the Senate, it was assigned to the Judiciary Committee alone.

Manning said she would have no objection to packaging CAA and AAA together. She said she’s also sought to incorporate pieces of CAA into other bills that are moving forward in the House.

In the Senate, Schumer’s plans for the bill, of which he is a cosponsor, remain unclear. Officials from the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism spoke to Schumer about the bill last month, but he has not addressed it publicly.

A source familiar with the situation said that Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), the lead CAA sponsor in the Senate, is examining options for including the CAA in a larger legislative package. Such bills, like the National Defense Authorization Act or annual spending bills, are often a vehicle for pieces of legislation that are unlikely to pass independently.

“Senator [James] Lankford [R-OK] and I introduced this bipartisan legislation because we urgently need a whole-of-government approach to counter the unprecedented rise of antisemitism,” Rosen said in a statement to JI. “I’m proud that our bill has received support from dozens of Jewish organizations across the political spectrum, and is continuing to gain additional bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress. I call on leadership on both sides of the aisle to explore all available avenues to advance and pass legislation that tackles rising antisemitism in the U.S.”

Sources said that objections to CAA vary: Some on the right are concerned that the definition of antisemitism used in the bill is not strong enough, as it doesn’t include the IHRA definition’s examples, while some Democrats still believe it goes too far in codifying the IHRA definition. The bill endorses the IHRA definition alone, without addressing its examples.

Some Republicans also object to provisions in the bill creating new federal government positions for fighting antisemitism.

Another source charged that differing messaging coming from some Jewish community groups — some groups support only one of the two bills — has made the push for the CAA less unified and less effective.

Darcy Hirsh, the director of government relations and advocacy at the National Council of Jewish Women, told JI, “we’re running out of time” before the summer congressional recess and the November election. She urged House and Senate leadership to bring CAA to the floor in each chamber for a vote. NCJW is not supporting AAA.

“There’s a crisis of antisemitism. With colleges and universities’ school years starting just around the corner, we urge Congress to act on something we’re all unified on,” Hirsh continued, referring to the CAA.

Despite current obstacles, one source said that they still see a path to get both bills through Congress this year, and that the issues can be worked out when significant pressure is applied. The source said, however, that push needs to happen “sooner than later.”