Posts tagged PAC
JD Vance Courts Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters
June 1, 2026 // Mr. O’Brien is desperate for a win in Washington to sell to his 1.3 million members as he runs for re-election. Some Republicans in Congress seem eager to give him one—maybe two—as they seek to burnish their bona fides as defenders of the working class. These Republicans are doing more to help Democrats—the primary beneficiaries of Teamster campaign donations—than workers. The Teamsters’ membership has shrunk by nearly half since the 1970s amid a broader decline in organized labor. Technology has improved productivity. At the same time, jobs have migrated to states with right-to-work laws, which prohibit unions and employers from making union membership a condition of employment. The Teamsters have also lost rank-and-file support. Between 2016 and 2025, members filed 373 petitions to decertify the Teamsters, according to Reason magazine. Some 60% of the decertification elections succeeded. You can’t blame union members for wearying of paying dues that bankroll Democratic candidates and lavish lifestyles of union leaders. In the 2023-24 election cycle, 92% of Teamsters PAC donations to federal candidates went to Democrats, as did 91% of the union’s contributions to party committees.
Exclusive: Major transportation union poured millions into Dem politics, casinos as workers got sold out, report finds
May 20, 2026 // The American Accountability Foundation report alleges SMART-TD poured money into Democratic candidates and liberal groups while spending heavily on entertainment, travel, casinos and resorts. The report also argues the spending shows union leadership is out of step with the purportedly “MAGA” blue-collar workers it represents.
UAW forum generates heated exchanges between gubernatorial opponents
May 19, 2026 // Two of the top candidates to be Michigan's next governor, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, repeatedly clashed Monday night over how they've raised money to support their political ambitions. The exchanges, which might preview the race ahead this fall, played out at a forum organized by the United Auto Workers inside a union hall in Dearborn. About 150 people were in the crowd for the event that featured Duggan, a former Democratic prosecutor and current independent candidate for Michigan's top office, and two Democratic contenders, Benson and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson.
Op-ed: Unions are acting as a toll booth on the road to unaccountable single-party power
May 8, 2026 // Unions do not write personal checks. They collect dues from membership — teachers, construction workers, public employees — then steer voluntary PAC contributions through ActBlue, the Democrats’ preferred fundraising apparatus. The tilt is so extreme it would embarrass a slot machine. The National Education Association’s PAC raised nearly $27 million in the 2024 election cycle, virtually every dollar aimed at electing Democrats. The four largest government unions — the NEA, the American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME, and the Service Employees International Union — spent more than $700 million on election-related activity in the 2021–22 cycle alone, with 96 percent flowing to Democratic candidates and organizations. That is not grassroots democracy — it is a toll booth on the road to single-party rule.
Pennsylvania unions know that money talks
April 27, 2026 // The union PACs spent $2.2 million on the judicial retentions. Voters retained all three justices, Kevin Dougherty, Christine Donohue, and David Wecht. The unions spent $2.2 million to retain them. Dougherty received the most union funding — $1.1 million. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Locals 5 and 98 spent $180,000 to help retain Dougherty. Dougherty’s incarcerated brother, John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty, led the Local 98. Government unions overwhelmingly supported Democrats for political office. Roughly 91 percent of partisan candidate donations went to Democrats, while Republicans received just over 9 percent, the report said.
Op-ed: Public employee unions facing final showdown
January 5, 2026 // Some have even been caught locking employees in rooms until they sign membership cards, as plaintiffs in one California lawsuit allege. When you’re spending 86 percent of your dues revenue on political causes that only a fraction of your members support, transparency becomes a threat. The $47.5 million workers are keeping this year represents more than a financial loss for unions. It means a loss of power to expand the size government, raise taxes, resist accountability and fund progressive causes and politicians
Teachers Union Anti-Trump Lawfare Cases Have Little Connection to K-12 Public School Education
December 4, 2025 // The AFT began as exclusively a teachers union but has six separate divisions that also represent other public school employees, such as teacher aides, custodians, and bus drivers, as well as health care workers and higher education faculty. The union’s website says it also represents public employees, including federal and state employees. “The AFT’s lawsuit spree against the Trump administration reveals what we’ve long known: these organizations have strayed far from their mission of representing teachers,” Aaron Withe, president of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a conservative education group, told The Daily Signal. “This is exactly why so many teachers are choosing to opt out—they want representation focused on their profession, not a political action committee.”
Opinion: My teachers union calls it representation. I say there are $114 million reasons to sue them
October 28, 2025 // But during the current election cycle, I learned that the NJEA quietly sent more than $40 million from our dues to a political action committee — without the knowledge or consent of members, and without a shred of transparency. Even worse, union officials used that money — including my money — to serve themselves. Those funds fueled former NJEA President Sean Spiller’s failed gubernatorial run, while he was still president of the union. Even when it was quite clear that Spiller had no chance of winning (he ended up finishing a distant fifth in the Democratic primary), PACs supporting him recklessly burned through piles of our dues money as Spiller was on the campaign trail — all while he somehow also served "full-time" as union president, collecting his enormous salary and benefits package from that job.
Nation’s 2 largest teachers unions funneled nearly $50M to left-wing groups, watchdog report says
August 25, 2025 // Left-wing philanthropic behemoths like the Tides Network, New Venture Fund, Sixteen-Thirty Fund and Future Forward, the last of which was the main Super PAC supporting Kamla Harris' 2024 presidential run after former President Joe Biden dropped out, all received a combined nearly $1.5 million from the unions, according to the report. The unions also forked over significant amounts of cash for groups that focus on supporting left-wing candidates for public office, such as the Democratic Governors Association, Democrat's House Majority and Senate Majority PACs. Other groups they have donated to include major left-wing think tanks like the Center for American Progress and its 501(c)(4) arm, which received close to a million dollars since 2022 from the two unions.
Educator urges Illinois teachers to reject union pressure, politics and coercion
August 7, 2025 // Sarah Fletcher, a former charter school educator and now the Head of School at White Horse Academy, a private school, said her own teaching career trajectory was shaped by a desire to avoid union involvement altogether. “When we moved here to Illinois from Arizona, I had very little interest in teaching at the public school,” Fletcher said. “Part of that was because I didn’t want to be pressured into or have to be mandated to pay dues. The IEA and IFT, which are part of larger organizations like the NEA, use the majority of their funds not to represent teachers, but for political advocacy.”