Trial lawyers and labor unions are targeting freshman state Republican legislators in southeastern Pennsylvania under the guise of a political action committee that feigns neutrality.
The Pennsylvania Fund for Change has been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on television ads targeting legislative districts where the incumbents are perceived as vulnerable. The fund’s website also describes how it is organizing “persuasion mail” programs that “will communicate” with voters in those same districts.
Although the Philadelphia-based PAC markets itself as a committee benignly focused on “voter communication, engagement and turnout,” campaign finance records show its agenda is decidedly partisan.
In 2018, the PAC received $75,000 from Emily’s List Federal Fund, $350,000 from Working for Working Americans (a group backed by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners), $100,000 from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (a group associated with former Attorney General Eric Holder), $200,000 from a fellow named Edward Snowden in New York, and $20,000 from the Western Trial Lawyers Association Education Fund, along with a range of donations from other individual trial lawyers.
The group that stands out from the pack is Pennsylvania Alliance Action, which donated more than $1.4 million to the fund in 2018. One might ask, what is Pennsylvania Alliance Action, and why is it important?
Public records with the Pennsylvania Department of State show Pennsylvania Alliance Action is a 501(c)(4) group that was incorporated by PA Alliance LLC. The lone member of the LLC is Samuel Pond, a managing partner and a workers compensation attorney with the Pond Lehocky law firm. The contributions to Pennsylvania Alliance Action that flow into the Pennsylvania Fund for Change should be instructive to elected officials in the legislative districts that serve as the epicenter for the fund’s television ads and mailings.
Pennsylvania Alliance Action has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the state affiliates of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, and the AFL-CIO, according to campaign finance records.
The teachers unions may be the single biggest contributors to Pennsylvania Alliance Action, with the National Education Association pumping more than $1 million into the 501(c)(4) group in 2018. Why would that be?
The Pennsylvania General Assembly in Harrisburg stands out in the northeast corridor as the one state legislature where elected officials have advanced school choice initiatives such as education scholarship accounts while also pushing for labor reforms that protect the First Amendment rights of public employees.
This would help to explain why the Pennsylvania Fund for Change is now targeting first-term House Republicans in Bucks County, including state Reps. Todd Polinchock, Meghan Schroeder, Wendi Thomas, and K.C. Tomlinson. The attacks are not exactly limited to southeastern Pennsylvania. The fund is also organizing campaign communications designed to unseat state Rep. Valerie Gaydos, a Republican in Allegheny County, and state Rep. Andrew Lewis, a Republican in Dauphin County.
Pennsylvania’s state Senate also figures into the equation with the Pennsylvania Fund for Change looking to unseat freshman Republicans. Federal Election Commission records show the fund is behind more than $132,000 in TV ads targeting state Sen. Scott Martin in Lancaster County, more than $158,000 targeting state Sen. John DiSanto in Dauphin and Perry counties, and about $178,000 targeting state Sen. Dan Laughlin in Erie County.
The Pennsylvania Fund for Change has not filed a campaign finance report for 2020, but the fund’s 2020 target list can be gleaned from Federal Election Commission records and independent expenditure reports for the fund available at the Pennsylvania State Department’s campaign finance site.
In light of the amount of money it has received directly from the teachers unions, the SEIU, and trial lawyers, and indirectly from many of these same sources that use the Pennsylvania Alliance Action as a conduit, the PAC and its benefactors are working to flip control of the General Assembly.
If history is any guide, Republicans who vote in line with the interests of unions and trial lawyers are not insulated from campaign attacks. In 2018, the fund poured $2.5 million into media groups that organized highly successful efforts to unseat Republicans and elect Democrats to open seats.
State Reps. Becky Corbin, Kate Harper, Tom Quigley, Alex Charlton, and Jamie Santora are all now former Pennsylvania Republicans who voted with the unions and trial lawyers on key issues such as paycheck protection. But that didn’t stop those same pressure groups working against their reelection.
For Pennsylvania parents who have benefited from school choice and for Pennsylvania government workers who don’t want their paychecks used to subsidize political activity, there’s a lot at stake in 2020. For Republicans who are inclined to placate unions and trial lawyers, they may want to look to recent history to see how far that gets them politically.
Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in Washington who writes for several national publications.
