Will Teachers Cost New Jersey Democrats the 2025 Governor's Race?
Democrats' financial advantage could dissolve as teachers exert their free speech rights.
New Jersey teachers who differ with their union's politics appear poised to revolt in the months leading up to the state's 2025 gubernatorial campaign.
With tax records providing further evidence that membership dues are primarily used to benefit the left-of-center causes, free speech activists anticipate that more teachers may be inclined to leave the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA).
The union, which currently represents about 200,000 educational professionals in the state, is a major funder of the New Jersey Democratic Party. During the 2021–22 election cycle, the NJEA PAC spent more than $1 million supporting candidates in New Jersey with 86 percent of it favoring Democrats.
But that's not the whole story. Americans for Fair Treatment (AFFT), a national nonprofit group devoted to protecting the First Amendment rights of teachers and other public education employees, made a critical discovery. AFFT found $6 million in NJEA dues, tucked away in the form of a grant, that flowed to a second NJEA-affiliated PAC, Garden State Forward, from 2020–2021. As an independent expenditure committee (IE), Garden State Forward serves as a conduit for funneling unlimited sums of money to political groups.
"There are all sorts of ways that unions will move money around, so it doesn't look like they're spending dues on politics," Isabel Blank, AFFT's communications director, told Restoration News. "This is just one particularly glaring example that members should pay attention to. The union will say the donations to the PAC are optional and they can opt out, but what we found here shows this is not true.
"The only way to avoid making political contributions is to opt out of being a union member all together."
Independent expenditures are campaign communications that advocate for the election or defeat of certain candidates, but they are not done in coordination with any candidates. Another advantage IEs like Garden State Forward have is the fact that candidates who benefit from IEs have no obligation to report on those expenditures.
As a political force, the NJEA packs a wallop, says AFFT member and retired Monmouth County teacher Sue Fischer. Although she was pleased with some of the work her union did at the county level, Fischer discovered the most of her dues went to the NJEA and the National Education Association.
"The NJEA is one of the wealthiest and most powerful teachers' unions in the whole country," Fischer explained. "Before I retired, I learned that as union members we were paying some the highest dues in the whole country."
Fischer estimates that she was paying about $1,200 per year in union dues, of which roughly $900 benefited the NJEA and another $200 went to the NEA. Just $25 went to the Monmouth County Education Association, her local union.
It was while she was attended a conference in Denver, Colorado earlier this year that Fischer learned more about how the dues structure for the NJEA fits into a larger national picture. The conference organized through the Freedom Foundation, a free market think tank, brought Fischer into contact with teachers from across the country.
"If we are not paying the most dues in the whole country, we are certainly close to it," Fischer said. "I found out, for example, that the California teachers are paying about half of what do in terms of dues."
Fischer first became attuned to how out of step the union was with her own values after perusing the NJEA's magazine. One issue, for example, was devoted to promoting the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state.
"I remember there was one issue that had Hillary Clinton's mug shot on the cover," Fischer said. "That was an eye opener for many of us since the magazine was supposed to be for teachers, but instead it was just all political. You open it up and they are promoting policies like abortion and 99 percent of the time they were promoting Democrats for office."
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Reasserting Free Speech Rights
When the U.S. Supreme Court strike down union mandates for public sector workers in 2018, Fischer seized on the opportunity to free herself from paying for politics she does not support. In Janus v. AFSCME, the high court invalidated state laws that require public employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of their employment.
"The decision came down the day after school let out in 2018," Fischer recalled. "Me and a few of my colleagues immediately put in to opt out from being part of the union."
But Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who benefits from union donations, attempted to preempt the Janus ruling with "opt out" rules that were ultimately in conflict with the court's decision, Fischer said.
"If you read the ruling, it said that public employees had to knowingly opt in to joining a union," Fischer continued. "This means you have to give your consent, but Murphy was trying to bypass the ruling and make it as difficult to leave as possible, so we sued."
In Fischer v. Murphy (2021), the plaintiffs argued that the actions Murphy took prior to the Janus ruling were unconstitutional. Although the case was dismissed at the federal level in January 2021, Fischer said her litigation had the benefit of raising awareness among teachers.
"When the Janus ruling first came out there were crickets, no one knew," Fischer said. "But the huge takeaway from our lawsuit is that word got out that teachers had rights."
Fischer, who retired in 2019, is aware of more teachers now deciding to leave the NJEA. While it's difficult to determine exactly how many so far, she expects the trend to continue. Fischer credits Mike Lilley, the president and founder of the Sunlight Policy Center of New Jersey, for consistently highlighting the money and influence behind the NJEA.
Blank, AFFT's communications director, envisions a scenario where more teachers withdraw from unions at the state and national level, but find a way to support "local-only" unions.
"This distinction is important," Blank explained, "because individuals who continue to pay dues to their local, even after withdrawing from broader state or national affiliations, likely feel disillusioned with how larger unions allocate resources. However, they still recognize the value of the work that local unions do. Rather than suggesting workers continue to do this, a better change would be for locals to disassociate from national and state-level unions."
As more teachers opposed to the NJEA's politics continue to leave the union, New Jersey could conceivably become more politically competitive. There are already some suggestive trendlines. Vice President Kamala Harris won the state over Donald Trump by a mere 5 points. That makes the 2024 presidential contest in New Jersey the closest in more than three decades. But it's not the only example of a statewide race that turned out to be surprisingly competitive in recent years.
Jack Ciattarelli, a former Republican assemblyman and businessman, nearly unseated Murphy in the 2021 gubernatorial race losing by less than a percentage point. Ciattarelli is running for governor again, but faces a crowded Republican primary with seven other challengers. On the Democratic side, NJEA president Sean Spiller is running for governor alongside five other candidates.
