By A watchdog group, The Freedom Foundation, has raised allegations against the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) for making illegal contributions to Josh Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign. The group claims that PSEA’s political action committee exceeded the legal contribution limits set by Pennsylvania law, thereby breaching campaign finance regulations. They argue that this violates state law and undermines the integrity of the electoral process.
Shapiro is considered to be a top choice to run with Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket for the White House and comes shortly after the Pennsylvania governor was accused of partaking in a cover-up of sexual harassment by one of his staffers.
The allegations suggest that the PSEA engaged in a scheme to launder union funds for political donations, specifically benefiting Shapiro’s campaign. This has led to a broader debate about the role and influence of unions in political campaigns, with critics asserting that such actions distort the democratic process. Americans for Fair Treatment has called for a thorough investigation into these contributions to ensure compliance with campaign finance laws.
The National Review explained how the scheme worked.
The PSEA has a political fund, PSEA-PACE (political action committee for education), which is funded by voluntary contributions from PSEA members. PSEA-PACE is properly registered as a political organization with the IRS and as a political committee with the Pennsylvania government.
PSEA-PACE is allowed to contribute to campaigns because its funds do not come from the union’s general treasury. The PSEA regularly solicits donations to PSEA-PACE from its members and correctly notes on those solicitations and in public statements that member dues cannot be used for campaign contributions. That is a good practice, both in light of Pennsylvania law and Supreme Court precedent from Janus v. AFSCME, which said that political activity by public-sector unions is political speech and that financial support for it must be voluntary under the First Amendment.
PSEA-PACE gave $806,566, across seven cash contributions and one in-kind contribution, to Shapiro’s campaign in 2021–22. Those donations were perfectly legal and properly reported. The PSEA makes contributions like this all the time and knows the proper legal procedure to do so.
That’s what makes its activities through the Fund for Student Success suspicious. The FSS was created by the PSEA in 2018 to engage in advocacy about public education. It is registered as a political organization with the IRS but is not registered as a political committee with the Pennsylvania government. And unlike the PSEA-PACE, the FSS is funded directly from the union’s general treasury.
The FSS did not make a campaign contribution directly to Shapiro. It did, however, make two contributions totaling $1.475 million to the Democratic Governors Association in 2022. Soon after receiving those contributions, the DGA made large contributions to Shapiro’s campaign.
“The PSEA violated the prohibition in 43 P.S. § 1101.1701 against employee organizations using general treasury funds to ‘make any contribution… either directly or indirectly to any political party or organization or in support of any political candidate for public office’” the Foundation argued in a complaint to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board.
The Daily Caller noted that “the Foundation also alleged that the FSS failed to register as a political committee and filed fraudulent tax returns with the IRS that said the funds instead went to Put Pennsylvania First, a political committee, when the funds allegedly went to the DGA instead, according to the Foundation. They also alleged that the DGA failed to disclose the receipt of the funding from the FSS in May 2022.”
In response, Shapiro’s campaign has firmly denied any wrongdoing, stating that all contributions received were legal and within the bounds of state regulations. They emphasized that their campaign has always adhered to the law and that the allegations are unfounded.
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