The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question:
QUESTION: Should it be illegal for school board candidates to take campaign contributions from teachers unions?
Talk about it….
38 comments
School Board candidates with ethics would not accept campaign contributions from teachers unions.
Original G
That’s exactly what I was going to say.
It’s all about good character values, or, a gross lack there of…
Yes, it should be illegal. I’d go much farther. Corporations and unions should not be allowed to give money to politicians. There was an unfortunate 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court a decade ago called Citizens United that allows it. I think it is wrong and unethical for a variety of reasons. Union members and stockholders should be free to contribute as individuals, but union’s management and corporate CEOs are a very few people who take the funds from union members or corporate revenue, and donate it to their own causes. I find that extremely unethical that shareholders or union members with opposite views are forced to fund those they oppose.
Agree about it should be illegal. Also Citizens United needs to be overturned. Too much political buying of the politicians going on.
100% agree. We really need to get money out of politics. Also, it’s ridiculous that politicians start campaigning 2 years before an election (sometimes they never stop). We should do what many other countries do and limit political campaigning to just a few months before an election and also limit how much can be spent on an election. I know its a freedom of speech issue but it would be great if we could get rid of PACs and limit the amount of propaganda being put up. It’s ridiculous that the DNC or RNC will basically invade a state and dump millions in propaganda to push their party. Imagine if we only allowed state and local funding for campaigning, or even only allow campaigning from people that live in the area/state. It would then be imperative for the candidate to actually gather support from the people he/she wants to represent.
Citizen’s United was a relatively narrow decision having to do with electioneering communications and the time frame during which such communications are restricted from being disseminated to the public. It has nothing to do with direct campaign contributions. While it wasn’t the boogey man people like to claim it was, it did contribute to the rise of PACs and Super PACs.
According to opinions at the American Bar Association website and journal, “The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have a First Amendment right to expressly support political candidates for Congress and the White House. The 5-4 ruling strikes down restrictions that had barred corporations from spending money from their general treasuries on campaign ads in the days before an election.” (5-4 Citizens United Ruling ‘a Revolution in Campaign Finance Law, ABAJounal.com, Jan. 21, 2010)
Correct – contributions in kind. Did anything you found conflict with what I wrote? You wrote that the Citizen’s United case opened the door to give politicians money. That is not true. Other decisions have been issued that loosened such restrictions, but CU was very narrow in scope.
YES 100% illegal, the unions need to go and have way too much say as it stands.
Yes.
Yes
I mean let’s get rid of all the lobbyists. Unions, guns, oil, pharma. Get it all out of politics.
You mean it’s not?!?
Totally YES!
Is this a rhetorical question?
Yes. Major conflict of interest.
It is legal?! Definitely should not be!
So, they should take contributions from Silicon Valley based venture capital start ups that open charter schools within our boundaries, take public funds out of our district, and have worse outcomes for students.
Or have business community ties that are opposed to necessary funding options for public schools.
Why don’t you want teachers to contribute to your district when the two other scenarios are happening at districts and school boards within our county?
I’m taking AB 1234 Local Ethics Training right now and I would say that the training is very clear on this issue. If you accept contributions from a teachers union as a member of a school board, you MUST recuse yourself from any decisions involving the contributors.
This is the exact training that the MDUSD trustees must also take. Perhaps their reading comprehension differs from mine, but I’ve been taking ethics training for a long time and I believe this to pretty clear.
The MDUSD Trustees must have attended their own schools as their understanding of what they supposedly read was not absorbed. Shame on them!!
No. People should be free to associate and to donate as they see fit. Via unions, clubs, political action groups, even corporations. These are all types of association, and people should be able to come together to support their causes.
BUT…
The better solution is to eliminate public sector collective bargaining entirely. The interests of govt workers over time eclipse the interests of the public they are supposedly serving. That’s how to understand the current situation with schools, imo. It’s not just the unions that are to blame, but they are the biggest source of the rot. The public school system is now a machine for protecting and enhancing employment and benefits for government employees. Usually it also functions, not well but still functions, to deliver some sort of education to kids and supervision for reliable hours, etc. Now it is NOT doing the latter, but still serves its actual real-life function: keeping its members employed, paid, pensioned, and protected from even minimal levels of risk on the job. You can see which is the primary function quite clearly. It’s like a natural experiment.
Excellent take Led.
The liberal icon FDR warned us about public sector unions years ago.
YES!!!!
Yes. Candidates who do so should be subject to detention and made to eat bad cafeteria food, and vending machine apples with ugly brown spots
No one running for public office should take Union money.
Campaign contributions for a school board position? Perhaps there is too much power associated with this position. Typically, I would oppose making illegal contributions, as I view lobbying as protected speech, but I also am opposed to having lobbying be done/needed for a school board member. It all stinks, makes me think the students, and their education are an after thought, if any thought, for the union and the board member.
I would rather privatize teaching and give a voucher to each student to use at the school of their choice. Close down poor performing schools first, to try and help the most severely harmed students. The school board should be responsible for the evaluation of schools and students. If we are going to keep the government out of the bedroom, why not keep them out of the schoolroom?
This is why the 1% stays the 1% because we do all the hard work for them. Anytime someone talks about pay increases people moan, welfare people moan, unions people moan. While the fat cats sit back and make the huge money on all our backs. Corporate welfare in this country is ridiculous and the 1% own all the politicians on both sides. So keep doing their work for them.
No. Teachers should be able to support candidates that they think will be good for the school district, the students, and the teachers.
You misunderstood the question.
Do teachers get to designate which candidate their Union Dues will support? Do teachers support the candidate that is there to help the students? Or do teachers, via their Union, support the candidate that protects the teachers’ pockets?
There’s an answer to the question in there.
There’s a reason it’s called a Teacher’s Union, and not called a Student’s Education Union.
Don’t know about campaign contributions but teachers unions themselves should be illegal. In fact all public unions should be illegal.
Most of the Board people themselves are former teachers, so I’m not sure it really matters. I do think that only individuals should be able to donate money to political campaigns though. In CA, there’s just way too much of a feeling that politicians are bought and paid for and these groups tend to lean one way only politically.
Unions are what gave us the 8 hour work day, overtime pay, breaks and lunches, and workers rights. Many of you are bashing the unions when you enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Virtually all of which is now codified in federal law. Unions (especially public employee unions) do nothing except protect incompetent and under-performing employees
It is unethical for the school board candidates to accept $ from teachers unions. An obvious conflict of interest. If they accept $, they should make public the amount and who it was from.
But it is no illegal, nor should it be. The various unions should be able to donate $ to any candidate that they feel will best represent their interests, just like you and I can support “our” candidate however we see fit.
The problem as I see it is in the Unions making donations to causes and candidates tha a union member disagrees with. The quick solution to this problem is to implement Freedom To Work laws in California. With FTW laws, a worker can opt out of union representation (and union dues) without fear of losing their job. It has been implemented in many states, with the unions fighting every step of the way.
California is a “union shop”. Don’t join the union and you don’t get the job. Take some of the union power and put it back into the employees’ pockets. Of course, the unions and their Democrat beneficiaries won’t ever go for this because it will cost them $, influence, power, and prestige.
Conflict of interest.
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