Pons said the state's campaign money watchdog, the Public Disclosure Commission, refused to provide guidance to unions struggling to meet the requirements. "We do feel a little bit like it's kind of a `gotcha' game," said Pons.
"In no way are these intentional violations of the law."
Through automatic payroll deductions, teachers in Washington pay an average of approximately $700 a year to support their local, regional, state and national unions. About $304 of that goes to the state union, and $130 to the NEA.
Under most school district contracts, teachers who don't want to join the union still have to pay the unions an "agency shop fee" that costs almost as much. That fee is intended to cover the cost of collective bargaining, insurance and legal services. It's not supposed to be spent on politics.
For the past two years, the state teachers union has agreed to refund to non-member teachers the percentage of money that would otherwise be spent on politics. Currently the union shop fee is 8 percent less than what union members pay.
The vast majority of teachers join the union. There are 75,000 members of the state teachers union, and fewer than 4,000 teachers who instead opted to pay the shop fee.
"I just joined the union because I thought I had to," said Karen Petty, a former teacher who lives in Spokane. "They're hugely liberal. For the NEA to say they speak for all teachers is a total fallacy."
A smaller number of teachers become "religious objectors," agreeing to donate all of the shop fee instead to a union-approved charity. The "objectors" are not eligible for union services, which are available to non-members who pay the union shop fee.
Suzie Murphy, a former school speech pathologist in Kennewick, left the union because she objected to its pro-choice stance on abortion.
"Not very many people quit the union," she said. "I worried about blackballing myself, because your co-workers do find out."
In the NEA case, the union allegedly made political contributions to three state initiative campaigns using accounts that included the agency shop fees. The union gave $15,000 to a campaign to raise the state minimum wage, $15,000 to fight an affirmative-action ban, and $500,000 to an initiative requiring an annual cost-of-living raise for teachers.
This winter the Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation complained about those donations to the state Public Disclosure Commission. The commission investigated, and last week ruled that the NEA was guilty of "apparent multiple violations" of the law. It forwarded the case to the Attorney General's Office for charges.
The foundation claims that nearly all the money that goes to the NEA is spent on political causes.
"They have political operations that a political party would envy," said Evergreen Freedom Foundation spokeswoman Marsha Richards.
But Pons said that because schools are publicly funded, it's virtually impossible to separate education advocacy from the political process.
In Washington, for example, the state Legislature sets teachers' salary schedules and benefits. State funding determines the ratio of teachers to students, and how much money is available for a host of school programs.
"Nearly every decision about public schools is a political decision, whether it's made by the Legislature, the school board or Congress," said Rich Wood, a spokesman for the state teachers union, the Washington Education Association.
"Our members expect us to be involved."
Richard Roesler can be reached at (360) 664-2598 or by e-mail at srwestside@attbi.com.
