September 15, 2010
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Teachers union helped unseat Fenty
The American Federation of Teachers spent heavily to unseat Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and to put the brakes on his aggressive efforts to shake up the city's schools system.
The national union spent roughly $1 million in contributions to a labor-backed independent expenditure campaign -- also supported by the public workers union AFSCME -- and on its own extensive political operation, a Democratic political consultant familiar with the details of the spending told POLITICO. The spending suggests that the vote -- while not a referendum on Fenty's attempt to shake up the school system -- was deeply shaped by that policy. And while the teachers union has been careful not to claim the scalps of Fenty and his schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, the election may serve as a political shot across the bows of other urban officials considering similar policies.
The union's president, Randi Weingarten, sought to downplay its role in the election, and denied that the union had targeted Rhee.
"For our members in Washington, it was what it was for other Washingtonians – about jobs, about the economy, about the city," said Weingarten. "This was not a proxy vote on Michelle Rhee."
Weingarten declined to comment on the sum the AFT spent, but the consultant said that most of the money went to unlimited and unregulated communication with union members, intense outreach to the union's more than 2,000 members in the district and to the between 30,000 and 40,000 AFL-CIO members in Washington, D.C. Each group received three mailings and several live calls; the union also did its own polling on the race.
"Labor has typically been little more than window dressing in local DC campaigns. This operation stepped it up to an unprecedented level. Without AFT this race might have been a coin flip," said the consultant.
The labor operation was by law independent of Vince Gray's campaign, but both sides preferred that the teachers keep a low profile, I'm told, for fear that Fenty would cast the teachers union as a bogeyman and Gray as their tool.
Weingarten declined to comment on whether Rhee, who has clashed bitterly with the union, should be retained.
"I learned a long time ago that you are very very careful about advice that you give to potential and to new mayors," she said.
But she indicated that she prefers a different style.
"Collaboration is the right way to do reform," Weingarten said. "That’s who Vincent Gray is, that’s why our members supported him."
But there appears to be no love lost between the union leader and the schools chief, who coincidentally spent Wednesday night together on a panel after a screening of the documentary "Waiting for Superman," of which Rhee is a hero.
"is it me or are there daggers going back [and] forth [between] Rhee & Weingarten on this panel?" tweeted CNN's Ed Henry.
["Yesterday’s election results were devastating – devastating. Not for me, because I’ll be fine. And not even for Fenty, because he’ll be fine, too. It was devastating for the children of Washington, D.C.," Rhee said during the discussion. "The biggest tragedy that could come from [the] election results is if the lesson that people take from this is that we should pull back. … That is not the right lesson for this reform movement. We cannot retreat now. If anything, what the reform community needs to take out of yesterday’s election is: Now is the time to lean forward, be more aggressive, and be more adamant about what we’re doing."]
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