The Sins of NJEA Teacher Union Officials Visited Upon Members

Many New Jersey politicians are calling for New Jersey Education Association teacher union officials to step down. And many of their members agree. The politicians agree:  it’s not the TEACHER members.  It’s the TEACHER UNION OFFICIALS who spend members’ dues like it was their own money. Tom Moran has the story in the Star Ledger.

If you are the sort to slow down at the scene of a car crash, then tap the brakes and behold the wreckage of the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.

“They would be better off with new leadership, then we can start anew,” Sen. Steve Sweeney, the senate president, said Friday.

So, what was the sin? The union tried to knock off Sweeney, breaking all spending records to buy a flood of vicious TV ads and mailers, under the motto “Time to take out the trash.”

The NJEA missed its target in a spectacular fashion, as nearly everyone predicted. Sweeney won by his largest margin ever, matching their money step by step, and hammering at the fact that the union candidate was a Trump supporter who volunteered to campaign for Chris Christie in New Hampshire.

As a bonus, we learned during this campaign that this same crew at the NJEA is paying itself Wall Street salaries. Ed Richardson, the executive director, earned total compensation of $1.2 million in 2015, according to the most recent IRS records.