Dues Paid For Union Don’s Political Dream 

New Jersey Teachers ‘Would Probably Blow a Gasket’ if They Knew

As anyone who has ever tried to recruit a candidate to run for a major public office knows, if the prospect of having to solicit millions and millions of dollars in contributions from friends, acquaintances, and other allies isn’t the #1 reason people choose not to run, it’s close. 

But New Jersey gubernatorial wannabe Sean Spiller, who just campaigned unsuccessfully for the Democrat nomination for the Garden State’s highest office this year, never had to worry about the grueling task of asking supporters for money over and over again. 

That’s because Mr. Spiller happens to be the top boss of the 200,000-member New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) teacher union, a subsidiary of the mammoth, 2,840,000-member National Education Association (NEA) union. 

Perched in that catbird seat, Mr. Spiller, a former Montclair mayor who had left that office under a cloud of fiscal mismanagement and deep unpopularity, effectively enjoyed carte blanche to write himself a check for virtually as much as he wished. 

Though the NJEA hierarchy couldn’t donate to the Spiller campaign directly, it effortlessly worked around the law by donating $40 million — mostly educators’ and other public servants’ dues money — to its own Super PAC since 2024, plus another $5 million to a separate Super PAC.

Teacher Union Bosses Spent A Record $45 Million+ To Lose Democrat Primary

“National Right to Work Committee supporters and leaders have seen many egregious misuses of dues-laden union treasuries over the years. This is simultaneously one of worst and one of the most laughable,” said Committee Vice President John Kalb. 

“Boss Spiller, who had essentially no campaign infrastructure except for what the NJEA and the other Super PAC provided and couldn’t even qualify for the last primary debates, barely cracked double digits and came in fifth. 

“Overall, he spent at least $533 per vote and got less than 3% in his hometown of Montclair!” 

“And the $45 million the two Super PACs have admitted to spending on Boss Spiller isn’t even the full amount. It leaves out their spending over the last week and a half before the election, which was surely enormous.”

Union Spending Occurred Without Membership Input

The NJEA brass didn’t consult with rank-and-file members before making its massive investment in the feckless Spiller campaign, and it’s unlikely more than a tiny percentage of them even know about it. 

Back in April, Mr. Spiller’s fellow Democrat and Asbury Park-based NJEA official John Napolitano confessed to NJ Advance Media that if most ordinary NJEA members knew about the Spiller political scheme “they’d probably blow a gasket.” 

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision, argued and won by a National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorney, public school teachers’ and other public employees’ union dues are now fully voluntary in all 50 states. But Big Labor Garden State politicians have made it a daunting task for civil servants to vindicate their Janus rights. 

“Confident that few educators will succeed in exercising their Janus rights, NEA, NJEA and local union bosses soak them for an average of $1,500 in annual dues assessments per educator, far more than teacher unions in Right to Work states today extract in dues,” commented Mr. Kalb.

“This type of domineering union-boss control of a state has been seen before, though, and has been broken up through the efforts of the Committee and our members. 

“A couple of decades ago, then-Alabama Education Association [AEA] chief Paul Hubbert made every legislator in Montgomery tremble at his name and his dues-filled pocketbook, even though he operated in a Right to Work state. 

“He ran for governor twice, losing both times and spending vast sums of dues money in both efforts.

“Despite his losses, he still maintained control of the AEA through the 2010 election, when the people of Alabama finally had had enough of his tyranny over their tax dollars and children. 

“That year, a pro-worker freedom majority was elected to Alabama’s Legislature, and it immediately worked to break the AEA’s control, passing a payroll deduction ban amongst other bills to curtail its malign influence. Mr. Hubbert, deprived of his automatic dues stream, resigned the next year. 

“New Jersey has long suffered from union-machine domination, but it doesn’t have to continue suffering forever. Committee leaders will do all we can to help liberate public servants and relieve taxpayers.”

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