Could California Go the Scott Walker Way?

◼ When it comes to stopping systemic reform, the California affiliates of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers will spend as much money as they can to do so.

Nine years ago, the two unions spent profligately to defeat a school choice initiative. Two years later in 2005, the two unions spent millions — including $58 million from the NEA branch alone — to defeat then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ballot initiative to increase the number of years newly-hired teachers gained near-lifetime employment from two years to five, and other initiatives aimed at reducing state spending. In the process, the NEA and AFT helped their public sector union allies weaken Schwarzenegger’s efforts to overhaul the state’s byzantine government structure and fix its woeful fiscal condition.

...the two unions have gotten their way on nearly every educational issue — including the passage of a law last year that bans districts from laying off teachers at the expense of fewer days in school for children in need of more time in classrooms, and Brown’s decision to cancel funding for the CalTIDES teacher data system (effectively ending efforts to overhaul teacher evaluations).

But now, the NEA and AFT find themselves on the defensive where it counts: The millions in union dues it collects annually from rank-and-file members (including teachers forced to pay so-called agency fees despite not being interested in union membership). Thanks to Sacramento-based election lawyer and ballot mastermind Tom Hiltachk, the two unions (along with other public sector unions such as the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) must now deal with Proposition 32, a campaign finance law that would stop them from using member dues for financing ballot and political campaigns. Taking a page out of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s successful passage of the collective bargaining ban, which also put an end to the NEA and AFT forcing teachers and others to pay dues to them, Prop. 32 would only allow the two unions to collect campaign cash from members and those teachers who aren’t members but are generally supportive of their defense of traditional public education policies and practices.