Keith Ellison's bid to lead Democratic Party runs into resistance

DENVER – Rep. Keith Ellison is facing increasingly vocal resistance to his bid to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee, with Jewish groups and some labor unions expressing unease about making the Minnesota liberal a face of the opposition to Donald Trump.

As Democratic state leaders gather here Friday for what will effectively be the first audition to take over a party still reeling from last month's election, a disparate coalition is going public with concerns about Ellison, who has won support from some of the most prominent figures on the left and emerged as an early favorite in the committee race.

After initially mixing praise and criticism for Ellison, the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday effectively came out in opposition to his candidacy, citing remarks he made about Israel in a 2010 speech that the anti-discrimination group termed "disqualifying."

In an audiotape released Thursday of a fundraiser for his re-election to Congress that year, Ellison asserted that "United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people," an allusion to Israel.

Jonathan A. Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, excoriated Ellison for his speech.

"His words imply that U.S. foreign policy is based on religiously or national origin-based special interests rather than simply on America's best interests," said Greenblatt, adding that Ellison's "words raise the specter of age-old stereotypes about Jewish control of our government, a poisonous myth that may persist in parts of the world where intolerance thrives, but that has no place in open societies like the U.S."

Ellison had drawn criticism from some Jewish officials for his policy stances toward Israel — he falls to the left of most in the Democratic caucus on the issue — and for his past defense of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader.

Supporters of Ellison, who was the first Muslim elected to Congress, noted that when he first ran for the House in 2006 he backed off from his support for Farrakhan, and they have pointed to more supportive comments he has made of Israel and support from high-profile Jewish Democrats such as Sen. Chuck Schumer, the incoming Democratic Leader.

In an open letter to Greenblatt, Ellison wrote that he recalled his remarks differently.

"My memory is that I was responding to a question about how Americans with roots in the Middle East could engage in the political process in a more effective way," he said. "My advice was simply to get involved. I believe that Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship are, and should be, key considerations in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East."

Ellison said the release of the audiotape — by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a nonprofit research group in Washington — amounted to "an attempt by right-wing interests to drive a wedge between long-standing allies in the fight for equal rights."

Ellison's staff members sent reporters materials from the Southern Poverty Law Center describing the head of the project as an anti-Muslim extremist.

CNN's website may have inflamed matters further Thursday when it excerpted an article Ellison wrote while he was in law school at the University of Minnesota. Ellison, writing under the name Keith E. Hakim in the student newspaper, defended the right to voice diverse opinions on Zionism, saying that in opposing an anti-Zionist speaker, "the University's position appears to be this: Political Zionism is off limits no matter what dubious circumstances Israel was founded under; no matter what the Zionists do to the Palestinians; and no matter what wicked regimes Israel allies itself with — like South Africa. This position is untenable."

Jewish organizations are not the only ones opposing Ellison. Leading Democrats, including some of President Barack Obama's loyalists, want a full-time party leader and are hoping others will enter the race, which will be decided by a vote of party committee members in February.

Despite quickly winning support from Schumer and other liberal titans such as Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ellison has drawn increasing skepticism.

Firefighters, some building trades unions and the food and commercial workers have all used recent meetings of the AFL-CIO to advocate against making what they see as an overly hasty endorsement of Ellison's DNC candidacy by the labor federation, according to several Democratic officials familiar with the discussions.

Ellison, however, enjoys significant support from a group of powerhouse union leaders, including Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. And Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, signaled the federation's inclination to support Ellison on Wednesday when he e-mailed union leaders a ballot that included just three options: Ellison, No Endorsement and Abstain.

Harold A. Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, accused Trumka of a "jam job" to ensure an endorsement of Ellison.

"A single name on the ballot more resembles an attempt at a coronation in a totalitarian regime rather than an election within the House of Labor," Schaitberger wrote in an e-mail Wednesday to Trumka and other AFL-CIO leaders.

Schaitberger and other labor leaders who are troubled by Ellison's bid have noted that others were considering entering the race, including Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.

Privately, many in this bloc fear that Ellison's ascension to the chairmanship would amount to a takeover of the party by Sanders and his liberal allies.

On Friday, Ellison and three other candidates — Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont; Ray Buckley, the party's New Hampshire chairman; and Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina chairman — are making their case before state party leaders.