By Nancy Mitchell, EDUCATION NEWS COLORADO
Teachers’ unions in Colorado can wield enormous financial clout in education-related elections, an influence so strong it has brought them repeated court challenges.
An EdNews Colorado analysis of five years of political contributions by the Colorado Education Association and its local affiliates shows millions of dollars in teachers’ union donations helped candidates win in elections as big as the Democratic takeover of the state Legislature, and in races as local as control of the Colorado Springs school board.
But union leaders now are fighting in Denver District Court for the right to continue giving to political campaigns, their third court battle since 2004 over how they use teachers’ money and time to attempt to sway voters.
The outcome of the lawsuit over Amendment 54, approved by voters last November, will not determine whether the statewide CEA can use the more than $1 million it collects from teachers every year for political activities.
What the lawsuit aims at, instead, is activity by the statewide group’s local affiliates.
In Denver, where the local union used its dollars and endorsements in an unsuccessful 2007 attempt to oust the board president and vice president, the union’s political fund balance has climbed to its highest point in five years, topping $200,000.
That’s money the union could tap for school board elections this fall – if the court gives the green light.
Four of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs and potential candidates already are calling Kim Ursetta, the departing president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.
“It all depends on what happens with the Amendment 54 court case,” Ursetta said when asked if the DCTA planned again to actively field and support candidates.
The amendment, touted as a “clean government” initiative, essentially prohibits anyone involved in a sole-source government contract from contributing to a political party or candidate. The authors included union collective bargaining agreements as sole-source contracts.
The CEA, while collecting $36 a year from each of its 38,000 members for political causes, does not collectively bargain with any agency. That’s the job of the local unions with their school districts.
Some political observers say union leaders are likely to win their case against Amendment 54 on First Amendment grounds. But the Ed News’analysis of teachers’ union giving between 2004 and 2009 may explain the repeated legal efforts to staunch the contribution flow. Among the findings:
Adding Up in State Legislative Races
* The CEA and its local unions gave more than $600,000 directly to state legislative candidates over the five years, often piling on in tight races. Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, the chair of the Senate Education Committee and one of the top recipients of teachers’ union donations, hit the contribution limit from the statewide CEA and from each of the Denver, Fort Collins and Jefferson County unions in his hard-fought 2004 election victory.
* Bacon’s 2004 race also sparked the first of the three court cases, when two Fort Collins residents claimed the CEA and its local Poudre affiliate illegally aided Bacon by organizing teachers to knock on doors and distribute literature on his behalf. An administrative law judge sided with the CEA, the Colorado Court of Appeals overturned the ruling and, last summer, the Colorado Supreme Court settled the issue in favor of the CEA.
Local Unions Give More Statewide
* In 2008, as Colorado Democrats sought to build their leadership margins in the State House and Senate, local teachers’ unions increasingly gave to legislative candidates who did not represent their geographic area but who were locked in tight contests.
* Examples include Joe Whitcomb, the Democratic challenger who tried to unseat Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield. Whitcomb received the maximum contribution from the Jefferson County Education Association though he was campaigning to represent a district that does not include Jefferson County. And Democrat Evie Hudak received money from teachers’ unions for Adams Five-Star, Boulder, Denver and Fort Collins school districts though she was opposing Republican Libby Szabo to represent Jefferson County in the state Senate.
Democrats Get the Edge
* The CEA and each of its local affiliates can contribute a maximum of $4,250 per year to candidates through the use of small-donor committees. The committees, created in 2004, can contribute 10 times as much to candidates as individuals or political action committees.
* This has given a distinct teachers’ union edge to Democrats. Of the more than 100 candidates who received teachers’ union money over the past five years, fewer than 10 were Republican. Of the more than $75,000 the statewide CEA donated directly to political parties and their committees, fewer than $2,000 went to Republican groups such as the Senate Republican Majority Fund.
* “We are trying to put people in office who care about children and public education and the people who work in schools,” said CEA spokeswoman Deborah Fallin. “We have no other agenda. We don’t care what party these people are … We would like to see more Republicans.”
Making Use of 527s
* Along with other unions and major Democratic donors such as Pat Stryker and Tim Gill, the CEA pumped money into 527 political groups, which operate without limits on fund-raising or spending in supporting or opposing candidates. The groups are not supposed to coordinate with candidates – they typically fund ad campaigns and mass mailings.
* The CEA and its local affiliates gave more than $1.5 million to 527s in the past five years, including $10,000 to the conservative Colorado Leadership Fund to elect Republican candidates. But the great majority of those dollars went to seven apparently Democrat-leaning groups managed by the same registered agent and bookkeeper, Julie Wells. Wells did not respond to a request for comment.
* Among the seven groups is the Colorado Citizens’ Coalition, the recipient of $200,000 from the CEA, which lists its mission as “to provide information to Colorado citizens.” The coalition filed reports indicating it was working on behalf of 17 legislative candidates – all Democrats. The coalition and several of the other 527s – Accountability for Colorado, Main Street Colorado, 21st-Century Colorado, Colorado Values – frequently sent money back and forth to each other.
* In addition to the CEA and other unions, contributors to the seven 527s included large donations from New York heiress Alida Rockefeller Messenger and smaller amounts from corporate contributors such as Anadarko Petroleum, Walmart, Monsanto and Glaxo Smith Kline.
The Ed News analysis focused on teachers’ union donations to committees and groups supporting or opposing candidates. It did not include the millions of dollars given by the National Education Association and teachers’ unions across the country to the issue committee Protect Colorado’s Future, which opposed several measures deemed “anti-union” on the 2008 ballot.
Does Money Equal Votes?
It’s easy to pinpoint dollars given but harder to draw a line between money and influence.
Of the eight members of the Senate Education Committee, state records show all five Democrats received some teachers’ union donations in the past five years. The three Republicans received none.
“I’m not on there, am I?” Sen. Keith King, R-El Paso County, laughed when told Ed News was compiling a list of lawmakers receiving CEA and local affiliate contributions.
Of the 13 members of the House Education Committee, all eight Democrats received some teachers’ union donations. Only one of the five Republicans did so – Rep. Tom Massey of Chaffee County, the ranking Republican on the committee.
King, who’s been active on education issues in two terms in the House and more recently on the Senate Education Committee, described teachers’ unions as “very, very aggressive.”
“They have a very receptive ear with the education committees,” he said, pointing to contentious debates on two bills the CEA publicly objected to – the School Finance Act and a teacher identifier bill that will allow districts to link student achievement to individual teachers.
Both bills were amended after negotiations with CEA lobbyists.
Evie Hudak, a Democratic member of the Senate Education Committee, said she could not recall having any differences with the CEA during the past General Assembly session. But she said that had nothing to do with their donations to her campaign last fall.
“It’s because of who I am and what I believe in and what I’ve done,” said Hudak, who has taught in Colorado and New York and belonged to teachers’ unions in both states. “I’m obviously like-minded so I share the union’s opinions on the issues.”
At least four of the Democrats on the House Ed Committee are former teachers, as are two of the Democrats on the Senate Ed Committee.
“People who have been teachers, and especially those who have been members of CEA, obviously they were supported by the unions but that’s just because they’ve been members and they share similar opinions,” Hudak said.
“I think people misunderstand that when they say the unions bought my vote,” she added. “No. The unions and I share beliefs. We share similar viewpoints about things.”
Back in court, round three
In 2004, the Bacon lawsuit centered on a claim that the CEA and its local affiliate made illegal contributions to the candidate by paying union workers to coordinate campaign activities. The state Supreme Court cited the First Amendment rights of union members in overruling the claim.
In 2006, Secretary of State Gigi Dennis, a Republican, issued rules requiring political committees that depend on membership dues for donations to get written approval from each person. It was seen as an attack by the CEA, which doesn’t collect consent from each member but does allow teachers to request a refund of their political dollars.
The statewide union appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which rejected Dennis’ rules.
The 2009 lawsuit over Amendment 54 reunites old adversaries – teachers’ unions and the Golden-based Independence Institute, which bills itself as a free-market think tank. A group called Clean Government Colorado led the pro-54 fight, with University of Colorado Regent Tom Lucero as its spokesman. The institute helped support the amendment and much of the amendment’s funding came through Colorado At Its Best, a nonprofit founded by Independence Institute fellow Dennis Polhill.
Every year, the Independence Institute sends e-mails to teachers in Denver Public Schools reminding them of the deadline to request their political dollars be refunded. This year, the e-mails also told teachers how to revoke their union memberships.
“We get more people mad that the Independence Institute e-mails them than anything else,” said Ursetta, the DCTA president.
The CEA received about 1,300 requests, out of 38,000 members, to refund their $36 political contributions this school year, Fallin said. Union members also have to request refunds of their political contributions to their local unions – $24 in the case of DCTA. Ursetta said about 150 of 3,000 teachers request refunds each year.
A hearing in the Amendment 54 lawsuit is scheduled in late June. Until then, Ursetta and Kerrie Dallman, president of the Jefferson County Education Association, said they’ve halted any political giving.
“We will not at this point be giving any money in any races until we have definitive word,” Dallman said. “I certainly have no interest in violating the law and the wishes of Colorado voters.”
The outcome may ultimately affect Denver teachers more than those in Jefferson County. The Ed News’ analysis found the JCEA gives far more money to legislative candidates, donations not affected by the amendment, than the Denver union does.
The DCTA spent $21,000 on legislative candidates during the past five years while the Jefferson County union gave more than $142,000.
In contrast, the Denver union gave more than $70,000 to DPS board candidates while the JCEA spent only $5,000 on school board races. Of that $5,000, $3,000 went to a controversial 2005 board election in Colorado Springs, which also netted more than $225,000 from the CEA, as unions statewide swung into action to defeat candidates perceived as pro-voucher. The Denver union did not give to the Springs race.
“We usually have pretty heated and pretty intense things going on in Denver so we keep our money here,” Ursetta said. “It’s not that we would be opposed to giving it statewide but our priorities are at the local level.”
The DCTA also has begun contributing to Denver city council candidates and has given money to elected City Auditor Dennis Gallagher.
“We actually made a conscious decision to start participating in the city council races because of the closer affiliation between DPS,” Ursetta said, citing closer ties after Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff, now U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, became DPS superintendent in 2005.
In Jeffco, Dallman said the larger district’s sprawling geography and low-key local races may account for the different spending patterns by the two unions. Each local has its own donor committee that questions candidates and decides contributions. But she said her union does want to participate in the fall school board races there – if allowed by Amendment 54.
Dallman, a social studies teacher, joined the suit against the amendment as a plaintiff.
“I think a collective voice is much stronger than an individual voice in the wilderness and I feel very strongly about that,” she said. “We speak with one collective voice on behalf of students in this district. Would we ever say to the PTA, I’m sorry you can’t get involved in any political races?”
Distributed by Colorado Capitol Reporters
