In Douglas County, Colorado, the front line of the fight for school choice and vouchers on the SCOTUS level, Republican voters outnumber Democrats about two to one. Yet until recently, Republican taxpayers in this peaceful suburb south of Denver were unwittingly paying about $1.25 million a year to fund Democrats’ political campaigns.
How so? Most of the district’s 4,300 plus teachers belonged to the local American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union, to which they paid about $1.25 million in dues annually, according to the union’s IRS filings. Since teachers’ salaries are paid by the county’s property tax payers, their dues come out of those salaries. So the $1.25 million annual dues end up in the coffers of the AFT and that money is funneled to the campaigns of Democrats running for office. That’s a lot of Republican-bashing TV campaign commercials and mailers.
The AFT and its allied union, the National Education Association (NEA) are among the country’s biggest contributors to Democrat candidates and political groups. From 2004 to 2016 their donations ballooned from $4.3 million to over $32 million – a new high. And 94% of that money goes to Democrats.
Which is especially galling for Douglas County Republicans because 60% of them voted for Donald Trump, even while they were funding Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign through their teachers’ union dues.
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