Golden Handcuff Awards for 2008 – Teacher Union Contributions to Illinois Politicians

36 million Reasons Why the State Pension Problem Is Not Going to Be Resolved Anytime Soon.

Since teachers have the Golden Apple Award I thought it only appropriate to have a similar award for politicians called the “Golden Handcuff Award.” Whereas the Golden Apple recognizes the highest achievement in the classroom, the Golden Handcuff would recognize those politicians with the highest achievement in garnering political contributions from the teacher unions.

To get the Golden Handcuff you must have received at least $100,000 in teacher union contributions. This is up from our limit of $50,000 two years ago because this year there was just too many politicians receiving more than that.

I call it the Golden Handcuff because once you have received money from the unions you are no longer able to lift anything heavier than a 5-figure contribution check. The heavy lifting involved in curbing 6-figure teacher salaries, $300,000 administrators salaries, multi-million dollar pensions, vouchers, endless property tax increases etc cannot be done when you are encumbered with the Golden Handcuffs. No sir, all you can do after your Golden handcuffs are snapped closed is sign on to (or sponsor) bills providing more money and benefits to the teachers. Things are good if you are an Illinois politician and you avoid talking about any of these troublesome issues.

Although the state does have a website to track political contributions it is not easy because the contributors can use many different names thereby making tracking more difficult if not impossible. Of course the various teacher union organizations do their best to confuse the public.

For example the largest contributor ($13 million plus) the Illinois Political Action Committee for Education (IPACE) can be found using the following names: IPACE, I.P.A.C.E., 1 PACE, !PACE, IPACE PAC, IPACE-Il, IPACE-PAC, IPACE-ILLINOIS, IPACE/ILLINOIS, LPACE, Ipage, IPACE-EDUC. In addition the various teacher organizations launder their contributions by sending money back and forth to each other in a manner befitting a Columbian drug cartel.

Therefore the $36 million total I have managed to come up with is probably low even though that is frightening enough. For example if you search for contributions from organizations containing the word “teacher” in it you get $23 million, for the letters “ift” (Illinois Federation of Teachers) $10 million, the letters “aft” (America Federation of Teachers) $4 million plus the IPACE $13 million gives you $50 million including the money laundering amounts back and forth.

The largest 3rd party contribution to Blagojevich was $300,000 from IPACE along with $250,000, $225,000 $200,000 from Illinois Federation of Teachers. And all of the money does not come from Illinois: over $2.7 million came from the American Federation of Teachers headquarters in Washington DC. Over $12 million from the teacher unions has been donated just since Jan 2006.

You will notice that although Democrats dominate the following list there are enough Republicans to make certain that the union’s demands are met no matter which party is in power.

Liberal Democrats are constantly complaining about “corporate” special interests such as the current corporate bad-boy Exxon. Federal contribution records show Exxon has made political contributions totaling $9 million since 1998. So if you call $9 million contributed nationwide “special interests” what do you call $36 million contributed in just one state?

Teacher Union Political Donations In Illinois

Total $

As Of June 2008

Politician

1,937,000

Dem

Blagojevich, Rod

1,378,000

Dem

Madigans, Mike & Lisa

598,000

Dem

Jones, Emil

541,000

Dem

Hynes, Dan

393,000

Dem

Demuzio, Deanna

323,000

Rep

Cross, Tom

310,000

Dem

Franks, Jack

253,000

Dem

Garrett, Susan

252,000

Dem

Link, Terry

251,000

Dem

White, Jesse

231,000

Dem

Halvorson, Debbie

155,000

Dem

Granberg, Kurt

146,000

Rep

Bomke, Larry

145,000

Rep

Beaubien, Mark

138,000

Dem

Elman, Sharyn

134,000

Dem

Del Valle, Miguel

130,000

Rep

Hassert, Brent

123,000

Dem

Ronen, Carol

101,000

Rep

Radogno, Christine

101,000

Dem

Myers, Judy

100,000

Rep

Dillard, Kirk

13,443,000

IPACE – Illinois Political Action Committee for Education

7,885,000

Chicago Teachers Union

3,607,000

Il Federation of Teachers, Westmont, Il

2,681,000

Il Federation of Teachers, Oakbrook Il

1,610,000

Il Federation of Teachers, Springfield Il

1,363,000

Cook County College Teachers Union

1,336,000

Lake County Federation of Teachers

713,000

West Suburban Federation of Teachers

435,000

SW Suburban Federation of Teachers

213,000

North Suburban Federation of Teachers

147,000

McHenry County Federation of Teachers

2,723,000

AFT, Washington DC, 20001

36,156,000

TOTAL

Bill Zettler is a free-lance writer and consultant specializing in public sector compensation. He can be contacted at this email address.