Wall Street Journal - Teachers and Democrats

8/13/2001 -- NEA President Bob Chase responds to Landmark's latest complaint to the IRS against the NEA in the "Letters to the Editor" section of today's Wall Street Journal.

William McGurn's Aug. 2 editorial page commentary, "Teachers’ Pets," should receive a failing grade for its factual inaccuracies and faulty reasoning.

Mr. McGurn refers to documents that were obtained by the Federal Election Commission during the course of its investigation into alleged coordination between the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party. That investigation produced thousands of documents, of which Mr. McGurn has reviewed a handful carefully selected by a longtime NEA foe, the Landmark Legal Foundation. Readers would have benefited from knowing that Landmark is a conservative organization with a strongly conservative agenda.

There is no basis for Mr. McGurn’s assertion that "NEA’s name surfaces again and again" in the documents. Nor should the fact that NEA was not the object of the FEC’s investigation seem "tantalizing," as he suggests. Had NEA been a significant player in the activities under investigation, the FEC could easily have expanded its inquiry to include us. The fact that it did not provides a powerful indication that NEA did not have the close ties to the Democratic Party the AFL-CIO was alleged to have had.

Mr. McGurn cites a document which contained the statement, "When the DNC and its national partners, including the NEA, agree on the contents of a plan, each national partner will give their funding commitment to the state." But NEA made no funding commitments to the DNC or any branch of the party. Any contributions it made to the national or state party committees were based on recommendations from NEA state-affiliated organizations and were paid with funds from the NEA political action committee. Those PAC funds were collected from voluntary contributions by NEA members. NEA did not and does not make transfers from general treasury funds—consisting primarily of member dues—to its PAC.

Thus the Landmark Foundation’s charge that NEA has failed to accurately report its political expenditures to the Internal Revenue Service is entirely unwarranted. NEA is proud of its high standards in regard to political action and accountability. We strictly adhere to all campaign finance laws. Efforts to besmirch our good name are completely without grounding.

BOB CHASE
President
National Education Association
Washington