Ranking: 4
Total contributions to super PACs: $3.6 million*
- $3.5 million to NEA Advocacy Fund
- $100,000 to American Bridge 21st Century
Federal hard money and 527 contributions:
- Has donated more than $560,000 to federal candidates through its PAC so far this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics
Total spent on federal lobbying (2007-2011): $24 million
Lobbying issues: Education, budget appropriations, taxes, labor issues.
Background:
The nation’s largest union, claiming 3 million public educators, endorsed President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in July. Now it is ramping up its spending. In March, the teachers union gave $3 million to its super PAC, the NEA Advocacy Fund. A week later, the super PAC gave $500,000 to the We Are Wisconsin Political Fund, a group supporting “progressive public policies important to working families all across Wisconsin.” The group is part of a coalition effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker in the state’s June 5 special election.
The NEA super PAC also gave $80,000 to North Carolina-based group Common Sense Matters, which spent money last year opposing two Republican candidates for the Wake County school board.
On March 30, the NEA gave $100,000 to the pro-Democrat American Bridge 21st Century super PAC, which has received large donations from other labor unions including $575,000 from its top organizational donor, the public employee union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The NEA is poised to follow its sizeable spending ahead of the last major federal election in 2010. The union targeted Republican congressional candidates for their proposed attacks on education funding.
The union spent $350,000, according to The Hill, on a late-September ad supporting Obama’s jobs bill. More recently, the union’s “Education Votes” project released a mock horror film trailer online, to defeat seven “uber-powerful” corporate tax loopholes that are “shortchanging our children” and “devouring workers.”
Last updated: April 25, 2012
*2011-2012 election cycle; source: Federal Election Commission