HARRISBURG, Pa.—A law firm representing a Pennsylvania
college professor is accusing a state teachers union of ignoring—for
more than four decades—a law requiring it to report the use of dues money for
political contributions.
It’s the latest salvo in an ongoing dispute between Mary
Trometter, an assistant professor of culinary arts at the Pennsylvania College
of Technology, and the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the
National Education Association, which in a letter urged her husband to vote for
Gov.-elect Tom Wolf.
Trometter filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Labor
Relations Board in November. Her attorney, David Osborne of The Fairness
Center, argues that the NEA letter and PSEA publications supporting Wolf’s
candidacy are illegal under a 1970 state law.
The law says unions cannot use organization funds to make
contributions in support of a political candidate, and they must report
violations to the state within 90 days, he argued.
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An open-records request, “despite PSEA’s enormous levels
of candidate support over the decades,” found no instance in the past 45 years
in which the PSEA reported such contributions, Osborne said in a written
statement.
“This is just the latest example of PSEA’s flagrant
disregard for state law and abuse of union members’ money, as Mary Trometter’s
experience illustrates,” he said.
The PSEA and NEA see the situation differently.
The union disputes the letter and pro-Wolf material
included in a PSEA magazine are contributions at all.
In a December filing with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations
Board, the PSEA and NEA argued the “common, everyday understanding of a ‘contribution’ is that
of something that is given to another, not spending on one’s own speech.”
That filing pointed to the state elections code, saying
it allows the union to spend treasury funds to communicate with its members and
their families on any subjects, including recommending a candidate for public
office.
Source: The
Daily Signal
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