ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the unions’ political spending based on data from their LM-2 disclosures and from reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) under federal election laws. The non-profit Center for Responsive Politics collects and analyzes the FEC data which are made available in its Opensecrets website. Union political spending deserves special treatment because of constitutional issues and concerns about the potential for corrupting elections and lawmaking. The data reveal that the unions’ average spending from their treasury funds across two-year intervals varied from $3.55 million to $6.27 million. In 2018–2019, five unions spent more than $30 million while 21 expended less than $1 million. As a percentage of net disbursements from treasury funds, the unions’ average allocations to politics ranged from 2.99 percent in 2006–2007 to a high of 4.22 percent in 2008–2009. In 2018–2019, six unions allocated more than 10 percent of their net disbursements to politics while 26 spent less than two percent. As a percentage of member-based income (MBI) in the last two-year interval, ten unions spent more than 10 percent on politics while 34 devoted less than 5 percent. In electoral contributions to federal candidates, the 53 unions’ total donations more than tripled from $60 million in the 2005–2006 election cycle to over $192 million in 2019–2020. The average electoral contributions rose from $1.1 million from the 2005–2006 cycle to $3.6 million or 2.5 times increase.
