With all the media attention to the money pouring into elections from business and right-wingers, here is an interesting tidbit from today’s Wall Street Journal:
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 2010 election could be pivotal for public-sector unions, whose clout helped shield members from the worst of the economic downturn. In the 2009 stimulus and other legislation, Democratic lawmakers sent more than $160 billion in federal cash to states, aimed in large part at preventing public-sector layoffs. If Republicans running under the banner of limited government win in November, they aren’t likely to support extending such aid to states.
Let’s face it–this makes sense from a survival standpoint. When you even have a nominally Democratic candidate for governor in New York, for example, who is staking his campaign on a not-so-subtle plan to attack public sectior unions, then, it has to be a massive wake up call for AFSCME to dig deep. The Firefighters and NEA are also investing a lot in the elections.
And pause to consider this: here we are living in a political world where the opposition’s main cry is let’s cut the budget so that we can…layoff teachers, firefighters and people who make your daily lives easier and safer…oh, that makes a lot of sense.
