The latest Labor Department financial disclosure from the American Federation of Teachers shows that in 2015–16 the teachers’ union spent $28,593,366 on political activities and lobbying. The money flowed almost exclusively leftward. In fact, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, AFT has given $76,446,797 to Democrats and liberals and just $363,000 to Republicans and conservatives since 1990. In other words, less than one half of 1 percent of the union’s political spending goes to the Right (and, in those cases, the money is typically used to support the more left-leaning of two Republicans running against each other).
Among the recipients of AFT’s largess this year are the Democratic Governors Association; the radical Hispanic activist group, National Council of La Raza; and George Soros’s far-left Democracy Alliance. AFT’s big brother, the National Education Association, isn’t much more balanced in its political spending. About 3 percent of its political donations go to conservatives, though a 2005 internal NEA survey showed its members “are slightly more conservative (50%) than liberal (43%) in political philosophy.” There is little reason to think the AFT or any other union is much different in the political makeup of its rank and file. Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which serves both public and private employees, acknowledged this past January that “64 percent of our public members identify as conservative.” Yet, going back to 1990, just one-half of one percent of the $234 million that SEIU spent on politics has gone rightward.
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