Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they’ll try to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act in the new Congress after failing to get the bipartisan bill across the finish line before the end of 2024.

The legislation never received floor time in the Senate after passing the House by a 320-91 vote in May. 

Then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), reportedly concerned about divisions over the legislation among Senate Democrats, declined to bring the bill forward as part of a standalone Senate vote. Instead, he wanted to add the legislation as an amendment to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, one of Congress’ annual “must-pass” bills that funds the Pentagon and also serves as a vehicle to pass other legislative priorities.

That effort failed after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) rebuffed the request.

With the 118th Congress in the rear-view mirror, members of the 119th Congress will have to reintroduce and pass the legislation again in the House and do the same in the Senate to send the bill to the president’s desk. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has expressed interest in getting the bill across the finish line. “I would love to get a vote on [AAA],” he told JI last month.

Asked if that meant he was actively considering bringing the bill up for a vote in the coming months, Thune replied, “Yeah, we’re talking about it.” 

Asked if he was talking to Johnson about reviving the bill in a bicameral fashion,” Thune, who controls the Senate with a 53-47 majority, added, “we’ve had a number of conversations with some of our folks about it, but I know the House has an interest in it too.”  

It is unclear if Johnson, who was re-elected speaker last week, plans to allow for floor time on the bill in the new Congress. A spokesperson for the speaker’s office said they could not discuss plans for this year yet. 

Even though AAA passed last year with overwhelming Republican support in the House, there are growing pockets of right-wing opposition to the legislation since it passed in the lower chamber.

Twenty-one Republicans voted against the bill in the House in May, raising free speech concerns. Many of them claim that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism is anti-Christian because one of its examples states that it’s antisemitic to accuse Jews of killing Jesus. 

Harmeet Dhillon, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, is a vocal critic of hate speech legislation and was an opponent of the Antisemitism Awareness Act when it was being debated in Congress.

But the Republican lawmakers who championed AAA in the last Congress say they’re prepared to keep fighting for the bill. A spokesperson for Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the lead Republican co-sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, told JI that he plans to reintroduce AAA this year. 

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), the top GOP co-sponsor of the House bill, told JI last month that he hoped “with Chuck Schumer going into the minority, maybe we can get the Antisemitism Awareness Act passed and signed into law.” A spokesperson for Lawler confirmed that the New York lawmaker also plans to reintroduce AAA in the House. 

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the Republican co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism and a co-sponsor of AAA, said that getting the bill through both chambers, with the support of Johnson and Thune, will be a priority in this Congress. 

“I think it passes if it actually comes up for a vote,” Lankford said. “So I think if we bring it up for a vote, I think we win the vote, and I’m going to try to work with Thune to be able to get a time to actually bring it up.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), one of the original Democratic co-sponsors of AAA and the Countering Antisemitism Act, another antisemitism bill, told JI in a statement that she intends to keep working on a bipartisan path forward on both pieces of legislation.

“I’m dismayed that Congress failed to pass much-needed bipartisan legislation I championed to fight antisemitism, especially in this moment of rising hate, including both the Antisemitism Awareness Act and the Countering Antisemitism Act,” Rosen said. “I will continue working with colleagues of both parties in the House and Senate in the new Congress to forge a path forward to pass bipartisan legislation that tackles rising antisemitism on campus, in our communities, and across our nation.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who also co-sponsored both AAA and CAA, said he was confident that the issue of domestic antisemitism would be taken up this year.

“It’s a critical issue and it’s certainly going to continue to be a priority, and I’m willing to bet with the new Congress, I think we’ll be able to make something happen,” Fetterman told JI in December.

One source familiar with the failed AAA negotiations last year said that they think that the bill would pass in the new Congress, but conceded that passage is not guaranteed. Another source said that the bill needs to get done in the first quarter of 2025, but agreed that there’s no certainty that it will pass.

“I don’t know. We’ll find out, but we’re going to bust our asses on it,” the second source said.

Jewish groups have also vowed to continue pushing for the legislation’s passage. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told JI he’s “optimistic” that the bill can pass this year.

“This [bill] was originally sponsored by [New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh] Gottheimer and Lawler on a bipartisan basis. It passed the House on a bipartisan basis. I think there’s a critical mass of senators on a bipartisan basis that would support it today,” Greenblatt told JI. “I’m optimistic that even if it didn’t get through now, maybe in a different version, we’ll be able to get the [contents] of the bill into the goal, into the end zone in the new Congress.”

He suggested that Congress should look in 2025 at taking up a new combined piece of antisemitism legislation that brings together AAA with the key provisions of CAA, a more sweeping bill which has support from a broad range of Jewish community organizations but never advanced in either chamber.

Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed reporting.