NJEA Lobbying: Did You Get Your $6.8 Million Worth?

New Jersey Left Behind:

Lots of press on NJEA's bill for lobbying last year: $6.8 million, far more than any other lobbying group in NJ. At about 200,000 members who pay an average of $730 in annual dues, that's about 5% of each teacher's contribution. Pennies in the grand scheme of things. And yet...here's NJEA Spokesman Steve Wollmer sounding a tad defensive in the Star-Ledger: "We spent that money. We felt we had to. The governor was putting out a lot of what we feel was misinformation on education and our members demanded we set the record straight"

and in NJ Spotlight: "It was unprecedented, but so is the severity of the attacks by this governor. Our membership insisted on it, and our leadership did, too."

and in the Asbury Park Press, "It's like a fight between two heavyweights; you land some punches, and everyone gets hurt. Our And we acknowledge that numbers for NJEA are down. But that's not going to stop us from telling the truth."

Locally, the Wisconsin Education Association's $2,143,588 topped lobbying expenditures from January, 2009 to July, 2010

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 12, 2011 1:03 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas