By Jim Brown
Washington State’s Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) is fighting to uphold a state law designed to protect the free-speech rights of teachers, and to prevent unions like the Washington Education Association (WEA) from using non-member teachers’ dues for political purposes.
In a controversial ruling last month, a three-judge panel in Washington’s Court of Appeals declared unconstitutional a state law prohibiting groups like the WEA from using the mandatory dues of non-members to support political activities.
Now the PDC is taking its case to the State Supreme Court. Marsha Richards, a spokeswoman for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, says her organization is glad to hear the case will be appealed.
“We want the PDC to pursue this aggressively to make sure this Court of Appeals ruling that turns the First Amendment on its head is not kept in place,” Richards says.
Richards says the WEA, which Associated Press has described as one of the state’s most powerful political organizations, simply wants more money for its liberal political machine.
“They collect a lot of money from these teachers,” she explains. “Just over the past two years since the Superior Court said they couldn’t do that anymore, they have refunded about $300,000 to teachers in our state for money taken out for politics. So they have a lot of money at stake — money they just put into their political coffers and use to influence elections.
Richards says the appellate court ruling was so outrageous that more than 500 Washington residents contacted the PDC and the Attorney General’s office, requesting that the case be appealed.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press).
