Ann Marie Pocklembo writes for National Review Online about one prospective candidate for a top national union job.
At the National Education Association’s annual meeting early this month, delegates will pick a new president to lead the nation’s largest teachers’ union. New Jersey’s Sean Spiller, one of four vying for the position, may seem like a model candidate. He’s a former college hockey star, mayor, science teacher, and statewide union president who recently ran for governor. I also agree with his campaign rhetoric that teachers need leadership that “defends our rights” and “elevates our voices.”
But as a New Jersey teacher and union member for the past three decades, I believe his actions as New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) president contradict his message and disqualify him from this leadership position. In fact, those actions ultimately prompted me to sue Spiller and the union he led, which was his biggest political benefactor.
In last year’s Democratic primary, Spiller ran for governor and brought in minimal direct financial support. But pro-Spiller ads still flooded the airwaves and swamped mailboxes. I had no plans to vote for him, so it was no big deal, I thought.
Then I found out teachers like me had funded those ads, whether we liked it or not. Behind the scenes, the NJEA had allegedly funneled tens of millions of dollars in mandatory teachers’ dues to a super PAC supporting Spiller’s gubernatorial campaign. Spiller says he wants to “elevate our voices,” but he coopted mine.
I know unions engage in political advocacy, but contributions to the NJEA’s political action committee are supposedly separate from regular dues — that’s what the union has said in its membership materials. There’s a separate box for political contributions on our membership application, and I clearly didn’t sign it. The NJEA’s own website even said, “By law, dues money cannot be used for partisan political campaigns,” until the union stealthily changed it in the months leading up to the primary.
