The NEA may have a bi-partisan membership, but their political activity is strictly partisan

Nuanced Equity Association

The National Education Association, one of the largest unions in the nation with over 2.7 million dues paying members, has always been an active organization in the realm of federal politics and the political application of policy. This in and of itself is nothing that should raise anyone’s ire, or even eyebrows. 

The crafting of the education legislation that will directly impact their members is certainly something in which they should have a voice. After all, “special interest” should not be the dirty word(s) it has been made out to be. The teachers’ union is interested in one specialized area of the legislative process; it makes perfect sense and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Adjunct Professor

What is wrong is the highly and often bitterly partisan manner in which the NEA goes about affecting policy and the process. They have been a unilaterally Democrat entity for nearly thirty years. The Department of Education (DoE) was created in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter as a token of his appreciation for the work the NEA did on behalf of his elective efforts. 

They have routinely run anti-Republican radio and television advertisements in races throughout the nation, under the guise of independent expenditure “issue education” efforts. Randall J. Moody, the NEA’s federal policy manager, openly declared war on Congressional Elephants last summer when he said, “(W)e may find some right-wing Republicans that we can take out.” 

This goes hand in hand with their effort to replace President George W. Bush with a “pro-education” president. What he (and they) mean, of course, is a “pro-teachers’ union” (read Democrat) President.

Bush has increased federal spending on education by 62% in his first three years in office, hardly the “anti-education” man the NEA makes him out to be. 

(Although, under the current scholastic circumstances, more money may mean anti-education, given the train wreck that is the public edification system. But it shouldn’t mean this to these guys.) 

Bush let Massachusetts Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy write the bill for all intents and purposes. Yet the NEA targets him for replacement anyway.

Anti-Fairness League and Conscription Investment Office

The lessons to be gleaned from this are many, but are an aside to the point of this missive. I endeavor to be both illustrative and instructive in all things, but I want to emphasize the former here. 

To wit, roughly thirty percent of the members of the NEA are registered Republicans. That means they are being completely misrepresented by their union leadership in all things political. They have their dues directed toward taking on the very Elephants for whom they are voting. 

And they have no choice in the matter. Paycheck protection is nominally enforceable at best in the few locales it is legislatively in place. Who is to say what portion of whose dues are being spent where by the powers that be at union headquarters? 

Ronald Reagan: The Only President Who Was Also the President of a Union

A good portion of what constituted the Yellow Dog Democrats that supported Ronald Reagan in droves were card-carrying union members, teachers and school administrators amongst them. And just like today, their dues were utilized to campaign against the man whom they helped to trounce the father of the DoE in 1980, and subsequently win forty-nine states in 1984.  This is inherently, to use the over-wrought and now-exhausted phrase, un-American.

But it does not look like anything is going to be done about this any time soon. With Republicans running the entire show in Washington, you would think some anti-union membership conscription legislation would be forthcoming from Capitol Hill. 

Not only would it be in the interest of fairness, decency and the American way, it would also pay crass political dividends, causing a leak to be sprung in the vast anti-GOP union money pipeline. But as we have seen on occasions to innumerable to mention, the Republicans often can not get out of their own way, let alone venture forth to remove obvious outside impediments. 

This is, of course, all a part of the joy that comes with an Elephantary association.