CHICAGO: A former congresswoman who represented one of the largest concentrations of Arab and Muslims voters is urging the adoption of laws to limit how much groups with foreign lobbying interests can contribute to candidates in elections.

Marie Newman, a Democrat who represented the 3rd Congressional District on Chicago’s Southwest Side and suburbs, which was heavily populated by Palestinian American voters, told Arab News she was beaten because of her support for Palestinian, Muslim and Arab causes and by enormous donations made to her rival by pro-Israel political action committees (PACs).

In 2017, Newman defeated Democrat Congressman Dan Lipinski — who frequently voted in support of Israel — and rejected overtures from pro-Israel lobbyists to support their causes, but immediately faced opposition from pro-Israel PACs when she rejected conditions they demanded in exchange for their support.

“AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Council) hated me with every ounce of their being and made it very clear to me. I refused in the early days of the campaign in 2017 when I first ran to take their money and I really wouldn’t talk to them because I had no interest in talking to them,” Newman said.

“I knew that they would give me a set of talking points on how to address Israel, Palestine and the Arab world and I wasn’t interested. They spent a million-and-a-half-dollars to get me out of office representing the constituents of that district.”

Newman details her election fight against the money poured into the race by AIPAC and the Democratic Majority for Israel lobbying groups in her new book, “A Life Made from Scratch,” which was released this past week.

She advocates for non-violence between Israelis and Palestinians and supported the two-state solution. During the Gaza war, after leaving office, she was also very clear in her criticism of the use of violence by Hamas and Israel’s government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“It’s important to make that clear, that it’s a genocide in Gaza and they must be stopped. So, this position we (the Democrats) have had, that we are betrothed to the pro-Israel lobby is wrong,” Newman said, arguing that she was in line with the majority of the American Jewish community nationally and with mainstream Americans in the Illinois region.

“By the way, 60 percent of Jewish people support a ceasefire and de-occupying the region. I have been talking about getting rid of the occupation in Palestine for close to 10 years. Most, over half of American Jewish people, believe that there should not be an occupation. It’s not a radical idea.”

Newman was attacked in mailers, paid for by PAC money, which falsely accused her of being anti-Israel and antisemitic. Ironically, Newman’s husband is Jewish.

She called for all PAC money, whether from a foreign lobby like Israel, or from a domestic group lobbying for corporations and specialty industries, to be eliminated or drastically limited in election campaigns. She said the issue is not just about foreign influence, but also the enormous influence PACs have on important domestic issues.

“The reasons we don’t have healthcare is because of corporate PACs. The reason we don’t have solid relationships everywhere in the world is because of these foreign entity PACs like AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel,” Newman said.

“The most egregious corporate players are in health insurance, the pharmaceutical industry, big oil, and the banking industry. Those four industries own Congress. Something over 90 percent of Congress takes corporate PAC money from those entities frequently.”

Newman noted that 12 members of Congress were forced out of office in the last election because of their criticism of Israel’s government.

“There’re 12 of us who are no longer in Congress because (AIPAC uses) the same formula where they either create a scandal, a fake scandal or false accusations, and then they beat you down. They raise millions of dollars against you. They put the money into the election race and they support your opponent,” Newman said, noting that the money is used to make the false accusations believable to voters.

“They make an accusation, and then they raise huge amounts of money, enormous amounts of money, sometimes without limits, and then use that money to push that accusation against you, even if the accusation is false … They used the money to weaponize antisemitism.”

Newman rejected assertions against her of antisemitism or that she is anti-Israel, and emphasized: “At the same time, you want to be fair to people, the Palestinians.”

Election law limits to $6.600 the sum a married couple who are voters can give to a candidate in one election, Newman said.

She said it was unfair to American voters that PACs representing domestic industries such as healthcare, banks or the pharmaceutical industry, or that advocate for policies of foreign countries, can donate unlimited amounts of money to candidates drawing what American voters are allowed to contribute.

“It’s one of the reasons I wrote my book. PAC money drives everything in Washington D.C. and, sadly, what happens when corporations and when politicians are beholden to corporate PACs and foreign entity PACs is that that money takes away the voice of the American people and it is replaced by the ‘talking points’ of those PACs,” Newman said.

While Newman was serving, pro-Israel PACs and political activists lobbied the Illinois legislature to redraw the congressional district maps. Newman’s 3rd District was divided and merged into five other districts to dilute the pro-Arab vote.

She was beaten when in 2022 she was forced into a contest in a newly drawn congressional district with the incumbent, three-term pro-Israel Democratic Congressman Sean Casten.