Law cut political power of UEA

The Utah Education Association, the main public-education teacher union, was one of the most powerful and feared political groups of the 1980s and 1990s.

But conservative Republicans took aim at the group, and its political action committee, in 2001 when the Legislature adopted a law banning the automatic payroll deduction for government employees' PAC donations. Since the law's implementation, the UEA PAC activity has dropped by half.

Supporters of the ban said it was just wrong for governments to spend money, no matter how little, to help any group raise cash for political activities. "Taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing anyone's political speech," says Royce Van Tassell, vice president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, a business-backed group that pushed for the 2001 law.

Now, with U.S. Supreme Court and a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings upholding laws banning PAC payroll deductions, the UEA and other government employee unions must find other ways of collecting their political money. And it raises the question of whether those groups' political influence, especially the UEA's work in legislative elections, will wax or wane.

"We believe there will be a slight dip" in political contributions by member teachers, said Vik Arnold, UEA director of government relations and political action. But it will be "nothing like we saw in 2004" when the 2001 law was allowed to go into effect by federal courts while lawsuits over the payroll deduction ban moved through the judicial system.

"We'll continue to make progress in the political arena" in Utah, says Arnold, even with the payroll deduction ban. "And we'll be a player here."

But a Deseret News review of UEA PAC fundraising and spending since 2000 shows the teacher union has fallen back in collecting cash, and groups on the other side of public education issues have sprung up and surpassed it in political spending.

For example, in 2008 — which saw all 75 members of the Utah House and 15 state Senate seats up — the UEA raised $97,300, spent $178,540 on politics ($84,746 given to candidates themselves) and ended the year with $119,720 in cash.

On the other side of the aisle is Parents For Choice in Education — PCE favors private school tuition tax breaks (vouchers), the UEA opposes them. PCE in 2008 spent more than $245,000 on the elections (just over $207,000 to candidates), more than the UEA.

Further, the newspaper's analysis shows that UEA PAC spending has dropped significantly from the automatic payroll deduction days.

In 2002 (after the law passed, but before the courts allowed it to take effect), the union raised $182,000 and spent $415,500. (It carried over $403,000 in cash from the previous election cycle).

And the union's political activities have been about half ever since.