Teachers Unions Spend Big To Support Liberal Causes

A conservative government watchdog group says America’s teachers unions are now spending more of their members’ dues on Democratic and so-called progressive political causes than they are on traditional activities such as recruiting, organizing, and professional development for teachers.The Florida-based Government Accountability Institute says it reviewed annual reports required of the unions by the Department of Labor and concluded that the two largest unions — the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association — spent more than twice as much on “political activities and lobbying” in 2021, or $66 million, than they did on “representational” issues, or $32 million.Between them, the two unions represent more than 3.6 million educators. They collected $575 million in dues from their members in fiscal 2021, according to the report.The president of the institute, Peter Schweizer, said the “research confirms that America’s national teachers unions are more interested in advancing a radical political agenda than in actually representing their members.”Mr. Schweizer said the spending priorities of the unions, which once devoted most of their money to the professionalization of the workforce and advocating for increased funding for public schools, have shifted dramatically in the past two decades in favor of supporting politicians and political causes — virtually all of them Democratic or left-leaning progressives.“While most teachers may be aware of the political positions taken by the union leadership on hot button issues, they probably do not know the amount of financial support — funded by their dues — being provided to political and social causes,” Mr. Schweizer writes.The smaller of the two unions, the AFT, has been particularly vocal since being taken over by its current president, Randi Weingarten, in 2008. Ms. Weingarten — an early, if eventually unsuccessful, candidate to be President Biden’s education secretary — lobbied to keep schools shuttered for as long as possible during the Covid pandemic in the name of protecting the health and safety of the union’s members.In the 2020 election cycle, according to the report, the two unions donated $59 million to various outside groups — 100 percent of whom were Democrats or advocates of progressive causes. Recipients of that largesse included Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight political action committee, which the Georgia gubernatorial hopeful established to combat voter suppression in that state after losing an earlier election. The committee received $1.475 million from the two unions between 2018 and 2020.Since 2015, the two unions have also given $2 million to the Center for Popular Democracy, which lobbies against nuclear energy and the Federal Reserve and includes affiliated organizations that made headlines by badgering conservative lawmakers in airports and public restrooms.All told, according to the report, the two unions handed out $30 million to left-wing advocacy groups in 2021, a figure that was triple what they paid out to such groups in 2005. The political action committees included For Our Future, Priorities USA, and Color of Change. Union donations to Democrats totaled $91.8 million between 1990 and 2020. Union donations to Republicans during the same period amounted to $3.6 million.“The overwhelming support by the NEA and AFT of Democrat candidates and liberal causes happens every year, even though surveys show approximately 57 percent of teachers identify as conservative or independent,” the report states.The Government Accountability Institute, based in Tallahassee, Florida, was founded in 2012 by Mr. Schweizer and an acolyte of President Trump, Steve Bannon. Funded in part by the Mercer Family Foundation, its previous publications have included screeds about Hunter Biden’s overseas business deals and the finances of the Clinton Foundation.Representatives of the NEA and the AFT did not respond to requests for comment on the report.Correction: Schweizer is the last name of the president of the Government Accountability Institute. An earlier version contained an incorrect spelling.

Teachers Unions Spend Big To Support Liberal Causes

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