Greg Sargent says the right is dwarfing the left on “undisclosed” expenditures: $75 million to $10 million. But when you include public-sector unions, which also don’t disclose individual donors, it isn’t even close. The top five outside groups by expenditures include three public-sector unions: AFSCME, SEIU, and NEA.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.
The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats’ hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending.
“We’re the big dog,” said Larry Scanlon, the head of AFSCME’s political operations. “But we don’t like to brag.”
[. . .]
The union is spending heavily this year because “a lot of people are attacking public-sector workers as the problem,” said AFSCME President Gerald McEntee. “We’re spending big. And we’re damn happy it’s big. And our members are damn happy it’s big—it’s their money,” he said.
Do the math. Of the top five groups, public-sector unions have spent about $172 million, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Crossroads have spent just $130 million.
And that doesn't count millions of dollars worth of "volunteer" labor hours, so the difference between the union contributions and CoC and AC ones is really much larger, correct?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis isn't remotely a fair comparison. CoC is unambiguously laundering huge donations from organizations who seem to want to hide their political fingerprints behind a screen of anonymity. In what way is AFSCME hiding their interests and/or affiliations or the source of their cash?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"It's their money"...you mean it's OUR taxes. Perhaps if these unions funnelled $172 million of our tax dollars each year to their underfunded pensions instead of campaigning to exacerbate the problem, the people wouldn't attack them as much. Public employee unions should be outlawed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSpeaking of doing the math: it's 171.5 million spent for Democrats vs. 140 (not 130) million spent for Republicans.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm an AFSCME member member and I'm not d*** (word AFSCME president used which I'm not allowed to use) happy about it. I get mad being told that if I support Tom Emmer for governor in Minnesota that I don't care about jobs getting created (my AFSCME members don't understand that the jobs that will get created will be in South Dakota or one of the other 48 states) or I don't care about my pension.
Well if I had control of my social security donations let alone my pension contributions it will truly be my money (a concept that people don't like) and I can control it. Because someday in the future it can be taken away from me.
Walter Hanson
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMinneapolis, MN
Greg Sargent's partisan hackery is shameful. Does he not have editors?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe real story is that Republicans are not telling voters that their employes' unions control Democrats who make sure that union members are not only over-paid but also have the best benefits in the world.
When you vote Democrat, you vote for your employes' unions. You vote to let your government employes set their own wages and give themselves benefits that are bankrupting your city, state and country.
Sometimes, Republicans are so oblivious.
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