The Democratic Party has a simple strategy: Continue pumping funds into Democratic candidates until traditionally Republican-leaning states turn purple, and then finally flip blue. It may have taken decades, but the steady stream of dollars to the Left is finally moving the needle.
In Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz defeated Beto O’Rourke by less than two points, even though it’s been 40 years since a Democrat came within five percentage points of winning a Senate seat in the Lone Star state. Before Lucy McBath defeated Karen Handel in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, a Democrat hadn’t held that seat since 1976. The Virginia state legislature hasn’t been blue in over 20 years, but today a state that once boasted a 32-seat Republican majority now has only one.
While countless left-leaning interest groups have helped fund these efforts, we’re finally able to quantify the role public sector unions have played.
In a new analysis (available at PublicUnionFacts.com), my organization estimates public unions have spent over $1.5 billion on political causes over the last two decades. That’s $75 million per year or more than $6 million a month that’s been spent by these unions on political advocacy. Of the amount that went directly to Republicans or Democrats, 90 percent (over $600 million) went to Democrats. In fact, unions gave more money to Democrats in just five states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Oregon) than they spent on Republicans nationwide.
That the California Teachers Association has given $15 million to the California Democratic Party and $10 million to political candidates, 90 percent of whom were Democrats, shouldn’t come as a shock. Nor should the fact that New York State United Teachers has spent over $15 million to further its own political agenda, 70 percent of which went to Democrats. What’s more telling is how much unions are sending to the Left in states where the Republican Party seems to be slowly losing its grip.
In Texas for instance, public sector unions have spent just over $5 million on Republican candidates in the last 20 years; they’ve spent more than twice that on Democrats. In Georgia, unions haven’t even hit the $1 million mark when it comes to Republican candidate spending, but they’ve spent more than $2.5 million on Democrats. Similarly, in Virginia, unions spent 11 times as much on Democrats as they spent on Republicans. Overall, public sector unions have given over $60 million to Democratic candidates in red states over the last 20 years.
The role public sector unions are playing in the Left’s red-to-blue strategy — or even in its blue-to-bluer strategy — wouldn’t be a problem if it was what union members actually wanted. But evidence suggests that many of these workers haven’t exactly hitched their wagon to the Democratic Party.
It’s estimated that 1 in 5 members of the American Federation of Teachers voted for President Trump in 2016. For members of the National Education Association, that number is 1 in 3. Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, admitted that 36 percent of her members identified as conservative. Even the United Auto Workers, which continues to increase its number of public sector affiliates by organizing graduate students at public universities, believes that about 28 percent of its members voted for Trump.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, no public sector worker can be forced to financially support a union as a condition of employment. Early data from the Labor Department suggests that this ruling is having a meaningful impact. Two unions with significant public sector membership — the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union — saw a 98 and 94 percent drop (respectively) in the number of nonmembers paying agency fees.
But information about public-sector unions’ spending priorities remains elusive. Federal laws that require private sector unions to disclose spending on annual LM-2 reports don’t currently cover public sector unions, even if those unions are affiliated with larger unions that are required to file. True, public sector unions must file disclosures on election-related spending, but most of that information lives in out-of-date state databases, making it difficult to use and draw top-line conclusions.
The Labor Department should get serious about expanding reporting requirements so that public sector workers can enjoy the same transparency with their unions as those in the private sector. In the meantime, perhaps making this data easily accessible will force union leaders to rethink their longstanding tradition of prioritizing a biased political agenda over the fair representation of workers.
Charlyce Bozzello is the communications director at the Center for Union Facts.
