It is perhaps well known to some that the public employee unions donate aggressively to Political Action Committees – especially those PACs that will help keep the public employee gravy train in good working order. Ed Lasky at American Thinker has written an article - http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/public_sector_unions_and_their.html - that spells things out quite clearly. The numbers he uses come from the Center for Responsive Politics - http://www.opensecrets.org/ - a research group which tracks money that flows into in U.S. politics.

As a former teacher, I am always curious to see where the two national teachers unions, the National Educational Association and the American Federation of Teachers, fit into this picture. Well, if you combine the dollar amount of the two organizations’ donations, they become #1 in the country – teachers unions have spent over $56 million their members’ dues on PACs in the past 12 years.

And just who are the recipients of teachers unions’ largess? Between 1998 and 2010, the NEA gave only 6% of its $30+ million to Republicans. And they are downright fair-minded compared to their junior partner in crime - the AFT. The latter gave a whopping 0% to Republicans. (98% went to Dems; the missing 2% went to “other.”) For organizations that claim to represent all teachers, this is a bad joke. They have never represented Republicans, and thanks to the availability of these statistics, we can all see that. Teachers can actually do something about this reprehensible situation, but that is a discussion for another day.