The City of Washington in the District of Columbia is not only the capital of the United States of America it is also the lobby capital of the world. Every two years some 900 Republicans and Democrats collectively raise a billion dollars to contest for the 435 seats at the House of Representatives. Every fourth year a Republican and a Democrat raises a good $150 million each to contest for the White House. Then there are 200 contestants for the 100 senate seats raising an additional $400 million. All put together a hefty US$500 million to US$700 million is raised on an annual basis just to keep the world’s most prosperous democracy going (campaign donations for state elections are additional to this sum).
Senate contestants need at least a couple of million dollars to run their campaigns; representatives a million dollars a piece (senators and representatives each gets a salary of $150,000 a year). Raising all these millions for election campaigns is a dirty business. The president, the senators and the representatives all need money and tons of it. That’s where caucuses and Political Action Committees (PACs) come in.
Washington, DC, among other things, stands out for three things: the largest per capita population of lawyers; caucuses; and Political Action Committees (a PAC is defined as a “political committee organised for the purpose of raising and spending money to elect and defeat candidates”). In 1993, India, along with her supporters in the US, decided to become a part of the dirty business of raising money, the power of caucuses and the manipulation of Washingtonian politics.
Nine years ago, the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans was founded with the official objective of “pushing the Indian-American community’s agenda on the Hill.” The original founders of the Caucus were representatives Frank Pallone (Democrat, New Jersey) and Bill McCollum (Republican, Florida). The current co-chairmen of the Caucus are representatives Gary Ackerman (Democrat, New York) and James Greenwood (Republican, Pennsylvania). Rep Ackerman is also the ranking member on the House’s subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. The India Caucus now has a total of 111 representatives/ Congressmen as its members. That’s 25 per cent of the entire strength of the House of Representatives.
Prominent among them include Gerry Ackerman, Ben Gilman, Richard Gephardt, Frank Pallone, Tom Lantos and Jim McDemott. Furthermore, out of the four-dozen Congressmen who sit on the House’s International Relations Committee some two-dozen are also members of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans. Prominent among them include Berkley, Blumenauer, Brown, Chabot, Crowley, Davis, Engel, Hoeffel and Lee. India, as a consequence, has a lot of voices as well as a whole lot of votes going for her.
Pakistan’s traditional lobby in the US has been the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA). Then there is the Pak American Congress and the Pakistani American Association of North America (PAANA). The Pak American Congress did manage to recruit Senators Tim Johnson and Robert Torricelli. Representatives David Bonior and Joseph Pitt did launch the Kashmir Caucus but the Caucus is yet to find direction. APPNA also has a Political Action Committee by the name of PakPac. The only thing that APPNA is fond of is creating its own committees and task forces. On my last count APPNA had at least 25 committees including a committee on hotel selection, election, communication, publication, office management, constitution and byelaws, finance, sehat, disaster relief, ethics and project Evaluation.
According to APPNA’s website there is a long list of achievements but somehow all achievements end, for reasons not explained, in October 1996. The last achievement listed is: “Executive Council voted to launch a movement for human development in Pakistan.”
PakPac, for sure, throws a lot of dinners. A famous one was hosted on Staten Island, off New York, to raise money for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The-then First Lady stayed at the dinner for two hours, netted $50,000 but left before dinner was served.
In Washington, we are no match for the Indians.
(Dr Farrukh Saleem writes for The
Friday Times, Lahore)