New Evidence Indicates NEA Misused Members' Dues for Politics
capitalresearch.org
by Terrence Scanlon
The National Education Association (NEA) has a new TV ad campaign to boost its image. "The campaign," says NEA president Bob Chase, "reminds the public of the contributions of America's teachers and the value of public education." He'll no doubt repeat that line when IRS investigators question him about how his organization budgets its members dues. But will they buy it?
From 1994 to 2001 the NEA violated federal law by using tax-exempt members' dues to help elect Democratic candidates, and then it unlawfully failed to disclose this spending to the IRS, as required by law. That's the essence of a formal complaint that the northern Virginia-based Landmark Legal Foundation filed with the IRS last July.
Landmark is convinced it's got the goods on the NEA. In May, the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) momentarily unsealed thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents it was using to investigate charges that the AFL-CIO and Democratic Party engaged in unlawful "campaign coordination" during the 1996 elections. Four days later the FEC resealed the documents after union leaders and party officials complained-but not before Landmark's staff photocopied all of them.
The FEC inquiry didn't focus on the NEA, but Landmark has found evidence in the documents that it was working hand-in-glove with the AFL-CIO to help Democrats win Congress and hold the White House in 1996. A "National Coordinated Campaign Steering Committee" handled Democratic campaign strategy at the federal, state, and local levels and, more importantly, coordinated political spending on candidates' behalf. The Committee included the NEA and the AFL-CIO, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the 1996 Clinton-Gore Campaign, and other Democratic Party organizations.
So what else is new? Why should anyone care that the National Education Association coordinates its political activities with the Democratic Party? Well, the IRS cares. The NEA is tax-exempt, and tax-exempt outfits aren't supposed to use their contributions for political purposes.
The NEA is a 501(c)(5) tax-exempt labor union under the Internal Revenue Code. Of course, union officials enjoy free speech to express their political opinions-but the law says their unions must report all political spending, and none of it may come from tax-exempt dues.
On its tax forms, the NEA virtuously lists that it spent zero dollars on politics from 1994 to 1996. The NEA also has a separate political action committee that reported spending just $6 million on politics in 1999-2000. After reviewing the subpoenaed documents, Landmark has decided these numbers can't be trusted.
The documents show that in 1996 alone the NEA budgeted $9.6 million for building "bipartisan constituencies among those running for and elected to public office to support public education." But there's nothing "bipartisan" about screening candidates for state and federal office through "voter guides" that favor Democrats and prodding union members to volunteer for their campaigns.
The most damaging evidence is a Coordinated Campaign memo that declares that the DNC and its "national partners"-the AFL-CIO and the NEA-must agree on the contents of a state campaign plan before "each national partner will give their funding commitment to the state." In other words: Agree with the union agenda and we'll show you the money. The NEA had a virtual veto power over 1996 Democratic Party campaign strategies.
Why would the NEA hide its political spending from the IRS? Two reasons. First, the Supreme Court ruled in the 1988 Beck decision that if a union spends any portion of its members' dues on politics, they can reclaim that amount. Second, union money is taxable when it's used for partisan politics. Either claim will hit the NEA where it hurts.
If the IRS acts on Landmark's complaint and finds the NEA violated tax laws, the union could be assessed hefty fines and forced to pay back taxes on all revenues used for political purposes. Then it will need far more than a TV ad campaign to save its reputation. Stay tuned. |
