Teachers unions have long been a force in Democratic politics, and they’ve accelerated their political giving in the 21st century. From 2004 to 2016, OpenSecrets notes, their political spending grew from $4.3 million to over $32 million, and in 2020, the two big unions in the sector—the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association—spent over $35 million.
That’s a drop in the deluge of political money that gets thrown around every presidential cycle. But a closer look at how the AFT and NEA spent their money shows that they place a high value on electoral politics — and they have a big impact on down-ballot races.
National Education Association
The NEA Advocacy Fund, the PAC through which most of NEA’s federal political spending is routed, had spent $5.7 million on the 2020 cycle as of mid-October. (The full scope of its operations will be clearer after final FEC reports are filed.) Its spending was targeted at a handful of congressional races rather than the presidential contest.
Most notably, it spent $2.6 million opposing North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a longtime foe of education spending, who NEA had previously tried to unseat in 2014. This time around, the union wasn’t any more successful, as Tillis won against the sex scandal–tinged Cal Cunningham. The Advocacy Fund also spent over $400,000 in an effort to elect Joyce Elliott, a former teacher turned state senator running for Congress in Arkansas’ Second District. Though that was a DCCC-targeted battleground district, Elliott lost fairly resoundingly to incumbent French Hill.
NEA had more success when it came to ballot initiatives. According to FollowTheMoney.org records, the union spent $500,000 supporting a pair of successful measures in Colorado that raised taxes on nicotine products to fund schools and removed a state constitutional amendment that kept property taxes artificially low. It also spent $500,000 to defeat an effort to eliminate a nonpartisan redistricting commission in Missouri (which would have greatly benefited Republicans) and $300,000 on a winning campaign to allow the Maryland State legislature to propose additional budget items. Those sorts of meat-and-potatoes ballot initiatives can have a huge impact on school budgets, even if they go largely unnoticed outside the states.
American Federation of Teachers
AFT’s main campaign arm, the 527 AFT Solidarity Fund, had only spent $1.2 million on federal elections as of October, according to OpenSecrets data, meaning a fuller picture of its activity will emerge as additional reports come in. (The union gave the Solidarity Fund $17 million this cycle, so that money will surely turn up somewhere.) But one difference between NEA and AFT this cycle was that the former did not give huge amounts to major PACs beyond a $1.5 million gift to Senate Majority PAC. However, AFT gave $4 million to the joint labor venture For Our Future, but also $2.8 million to Working America Coalition and $2.5 million to Priorities USA Action. If AFT didn’t spend quite as much on its own operations, in other words, it still had an impact on races up and down the ballot.
When it came to ballot measures, AFT’s biggest outlay was a cool $1 million behind California’s Proposition 15, which would have removed a limit on property taxes to fund schools, but failed after an extremely expensive battle. The union also put over $57,000 behind Nidia Carranza, a teacher who narrowly lost a congressional primary in Illinois’ Third Congressional District. (AFT is a major force in Chicago-area politics; in 2015, it donated $1.9 million to Chuy Garcia, who was trying to unseat Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, notorious for closing many schools.) It spread many other donations around various candidates and ballot measures, totaling $3.5 million according to FollowTheMoney.org
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These unions have strengths beyond their checkbooks; both NEA and AFT had sizable phone banking operations during the election. But for all the strength that teachers unions have—to the point that they are spoken of as a bogeyman on occasion—they don’t always get their way. When big money comes in on the other side, they can lose ballot measure campaigns; they were unable to defeat many Republican incumbents in what turned out to be a tough year for Democrats. Their favored candidates also lose in primaries where teachers square off against other factions of the Democratic Party. The results these unions got in 2020 were mixed, and there’s no doubt a lot of disappointment the Senate didn’t flip. But at least Education Secretary Betsy Devos will be gone soon.
