Press Release: Rep. Haley Stevens Asked to Defend AIPAC Funding, Refuses to Respond to Jewish Community Member

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Elias Newman
press@ifnotnowmovement.org

At a 4th of July event in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, a Jewish community member approached Rep. Haley Stevens to ask her why she is accepting AIPAC’s endorsement and millions of dollars in their support, when AIPAC has also endorsed insurrectionists and is using far-right consulting firm OnMessage Inc. to place ads for Stevens (see below for background). Stevens refused to answer the question, instead choosing to state that she has received “a lot” of endorsements, before walking away and turning her back to the question asker.

Susannah Goodman, the Jewish community member who approached Stevens, said in response to the incident: “The fact that Rep. Stevens ignored my question about AIPAC — walking away and turning her back to me — shows that she knows it’s wrong to take millions from a PAC that supports anti-abortion insurrectionists. Clearly she hopes to take their money without any public accountability, but as a Jew in Metro Detroit who just brought a new child into this world, I will not be silent as our representatives associate with antisemitic politicians who make us all less safe.”

At the event, Goodman posed the following question to Rep. Stevens: “With all the support of Republicans, people who are anti-choice, and people who are working to disrupt our elections systems that AIPAC is doing right now, I’m wondering why you’re accepting [AIPAC’s] support. I’m a Jew, my family lives here in this community, and I really think that those kinds of candidates are making the Jewish people less safe.”

Stevens is running for Congress against Andy Levin, a Jewish progressive Congressman in the Detroit area who is the subject of attacks by AIPAC and other right-wing organizations because of his progressive politics and his vocal opposition to Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians. 

In March, Stevens was endorsed by AIPAC which is making its first round of federal endorsements this election cycle. Alongside Stevens, AIPAC endorsed 109 Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election. AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), raised $15.7 million in the first quarter — with more than half of that from AIPAC itself. The super PAC has already spent millions to defeat progressive candidates across the country and is expected to spend significantly to back far-right insurrectionists in the general election.

From March until the most recent FEC filing in mid-May, AIPAC bundled nearly half a million dollars in donations for Haley Stevens. Last week alone, UDP spent over $900,000 on ads boosting Stevens and attacking Levin. Among the political consultants they’ve hired for these ads is OnMessage Inc., a Republican firm that boasts about its work for far-right Republicans like Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, and Rick Scott. OnMessage also recently conducted polling for the Republican party in support of the Supreme Court’s decision to revoke the right to abortion, and has been suspected of potential ethics violations while working with the NRA. 

IfNotNow’s Political Director Eva Borgwardt shared that, “Both in MI-11 and around the country, we have a choice to make: will we make excuses for extremists who want to overthrow the government and deny our reproductive rights, or will we fight for a better future for all? By ignoring her constituent’s questions, Stevens has made her choice clear: she’s perfectly comfortable sharing an endorsement slate with insurrectionist Republicans, as well as having AIPAC spend thousands on Republican consultants on her behalf.”

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