America has become used to Democrat politicians pandering to "buy" union support, but more often than not, the term buying support is a loosely fitting phrase to mean pledging allegiance to a union or promising their souls to the demi-gods of Big Labor. Typically, the expected favors curried in exhange for union support include promises of putting more money into union treasuries public employees' salaries through hiring more union members public workers.
That seems to be the way of influence-peddling politicians and the special interest that union bosses have become. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising to read that, in at least one part of the country, politicians are actually buying favor with a union...literally...as in money, greenbacks, dinero!
According to the Washington Post, the teachers' union in Montgomery County, MD has taken political influence peddling to a whole new level: Politicians are actually paying for buying donating to the teachers' union with money to curry its favor.
MOST CANDIDATES for local office in Montgomery County covet the endorsement of the county teachers union more than any other, and all of them know the drill: Appear at union events, fill out the union questionnaire, submit to the union interview. The union, representing 11,000 teachers, helpfully provides a road map to candidates seeking its blessing, including 11 criteria spelled out in painstaking detail online. Just one thing is missing from this handy guide: Candidates who receive the union's stamp of approval are also then expected to pay.
As far as we know, this arrangement is unique; in elections elsewhere, unions and other special interests contribute to candidates, not vice versa. But such is the overweening power of the teachers union in Montgomery that the usual rules are turned upside down. And it's no coincidence that the union's toxic influence in local elections is matched by its success in squeezing unaffordable concessions from the county in contract negotiations -- at taxpayers' expense.
In the latest elections for the Montgomery County Council, in 2006, most candidates on the union-approved (and trademarked) "Apple Ballot" coughed up the maximum contribution allowed by state law, $6,000, to a PAC run by the Montgomery County Education Association, as the teachers union is known. Union-backed candidates for the Board of Education also paid handsomely. Supposedly, these funds covered the cost of the union's mailings to constituents and other activities on behalf of its anointed candidates -- although there is no real accounting on a campaign-by-campaign basis. In theory, these contributions are voluntary. In fact, several sources told us that the MCEA's chief political strategist, Jon Gerson, made it clear that he expected candidates, once endorsed, to pay what they "owed" for the union's campaign on their behalf. One candidate, asked to explain the decision to pay, answered concisely: "Fear." [Emphasis added.]
But what happens if one of the union-backed BoE members bucks the union?
A case in point is Nancy Floreen, the current County Council president, who suggested, during a budget crunch in 2003, that the union make some concessions on compensation. That probably cost her the MCEA endorsement in the 2006 primaries, in which she barely managed to retain her council seat. This year, facing reelection and even more dire budgetary circumstances, Ms. Floreen has been quiet as a mouse on the subject of union concessions, even though negotiations on a new contract for teachers are underway.
[snip]
Some MCEA-backed candidates, and the union, portray this as a win-win arrangement whereby teachers and the candidates who support them help one another out.
[snip]
Most elected officials, too fearful of the union to object, rubber-stamp the teachers' contract and the county budget, thereby repaying the union for its backing. Other big public employees unions in the county, jealous at the terms extracted by the MCEA, use the teachers' contract as a benchmark for their own negotiations, creating a self-perpetuating spiral of unaffordable concessions by the county. Little wonder that the county is facing staggering deficits -- $600 million on a budget of $4.3 billion in the fiscal year starting this summer. [Emphasis added.]
With politicians buying union support, it certainly is a "win-win" arrangement for the politicians and the union, but an arrangement where taxpayers are big losers.
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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
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