On March 31, Congressman Ted Lieu visited the Anti-Defamation League’s Los Angeles offices to meet with a small group of leadership and staff. ADL lay leaders thanked him for his swift response in speaking out against the bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers, ADL offices and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and shared with him a list of ten action steps that Congress can take to fight anti-Semitism and hate violence. The group also thanked him for speaking out against the Executive Orders on immigrants and the travel ban and shared with him ADL’s Amicus brief and #ThisIsARefugeeCampaign. Given his background as a Computer Science major and his affinity for Twitter, Congressman Lieu was very interested to learn about ADL’s new Center on Technology & Society in Silicon Valley.
The ADL group asked for support of the No HATE Act, introduced by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Representative Don Beyer (D-VA). Congressman Lieu said he will do everything in his power to fight hate crimes and encourage more factual reporting. We encouraged him to also support the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Anti-Semitism Awareness Act and the upcoming Combatting Anti-Semitism Act of 2017. Lieu agreed to look into all of this legislation.
Congressman Lieu spoke to the group about his use of Twitter and said that we as Americans cannot normalize attacks on democracy. He said he will work hard to fight global anti-Semitism and thinks the BDS movement is factually wrong. Lastly, Lieu mentioned that he authored the first law of any state to ban conversion therapy for people under the age of 18, as this is fraudulent, and is working to expand this law.