Former New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller and the union face a lawsuit alleging they misused member dues for his failed gubernatorial campaign. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
By Nikita Biryukov
Reprinted with permission
New Jersey Monitor
Two public school teachers are suing the New Jersey Education Association, alleging the teachers’ union violated the law when it funneled $40 million to former union president Sean Spiller’s gubernatorial campaign this spring.
The suit, filed Tuesday in state Superior Court by Roselle teacher Marie Dupont and Hamilton teacher Ann Marie Pocklembo, alleges the union improperly used dues it said would not fund its political committees to fuel the independent expenditure groups that backed Spiller’s failed bid for the Democratic nod for governor.
“We are here today because the Fairness Center’s clients, two New Jersey public school teachers and a New Jersey policy nonprofit, believe the New Jersey Education Association should play by the rules and follow the law when it comes to its political spending,” Nathan McGrath, president of the Fairness Center, a nonprofit law firm that opposes public-sector unions, told reporters Tuesday.
The plaintiffs allege the union breached its contract by sending union funds to Garden State Forward, the union’s super PAC, which then sent the funds to Working New Jersey, the independent expenditure group that put $40 million behind Spiller's Democratic primary bid.
The only reported donations on Working New Jersey’s campaign filings came from the union super PAC.
Spiller finished in fifth place out of six candidates, nabbing 11% of the vote. His term as the union’s president ended after June’s primary.
The plaintiffs also charge the union misrepresented how it would use member dues and, by doing so, breached its fiduciary duty to its members.
“When I signed my union membership card, I did not check the back saying I wanted to contribute to the union political action committee,” DuPont said during Tuesday’s press conference. “That was a contract stating my dues wouldn’t go to the union political apparatus, but a handful of insiders ignored that choice and broke that trust.”
The union’s membership cards include sections for voluntary contributions to the NJEA Political Action Fund and the National Education Association Fund for Children and Public Education. They do not mention Garden State Forward.
A spokesperson for the union called the lawsuit’s accusations “baseless and without merit.”
“NJEA is a member-led union that operates as a representative democracy. Our members’ decisions about which candidates to endorse and what resources to use in support of those endorsed candidates are made by our elected bodies,” said Steve Baker, the spokesperson. “We will defend the right of our members to join together in power to advocate for our profession and our students.”
Spiller’s campaign for governor was unusual. Despite a statewide profile, he was the only Democratic gubernatorial hopeful to fail to qualify for the state’s public fund matching program.
His fundraising and campaign infrastructure were both limited, but Working New Jersey ensured ads, mailers, and other campaign materials boosting his candidacy blanketed airwaves and inundated mailboxes starting in the fall of 2024.
The suit alleges the union improperly reported its contributions to Garden State Forward on annual IRS filings, marking them as cash grants rather than political or lobbying contributions. The union reported giving Garden State Forward $8.5 million in grants in 2023 on its most recent IRS filing.
And they argue Spiller controlled Protecting Our Democracy, a separate issues advocacy nonprofit that ran ads boosting and featuring Spiller before he launched his campaign. The group faces limited disclosure requirements as a 501(c)4 nonprofit.
Filings show Garden State Forward gave Protecting Our Democracy $5 million between April 2022 and January 2024, though it remains unclear how much of that money the group spent boosting Spiller. Quarterly reports filed by the candidate show Protecting Our Democracy gave his campaign $5,800 last September.
Spiller, a former Montclair mayor, was the Protecting Our Democracy chair before the organization dissolved in March.
“Union officials must put employees’ interests ahead of their own and cannot use their position for self-dealing or personal gain, but the union put its own president’s interests ahead of 200,00 teachers across the state by bankrolling his political interests with members’ money,” McGrath said.
Separate complaints filed with the IRS and the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission by the New Jersey Policy Institute, which is backing the teachers’ suit, allege other violations of law.
The group asked the state election law commission to investigate whether the teachers’ union violated state campaign finance law by giving Spiller maxed-out contributions through its PAC and Protecting Our Democracy.
The New Jersey Policy Institute’s complaint to the IRS requested the agency launch an investigation into whether it violated federal law by disclosing its contributions to Garden State Forward outside the section of the 990 form devoted to political giving.
“Every taxpayer deserves transparency about the role powerful special interests play in our elections, and every candidate, no matter how well connected, must be bound by the same laws as everyone else,” said Rosemary Becchi, the institute’s president and a former Republican congressional candidate.
