Free Republic

OLYMPIA—Today Thurston County Superior Court Judge Paula Casey denied the National Education Association's (NEA) motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF). At issue is the NEA's violation of RCW 42.17.760, which requires unions to get "affirmative authorization" before using nonmember dues for political purposes. After Attorney General Christine Gregoire successfully prosecuted Washington Education Association in 2001 for admitted violations of the law, EFF filed a "citizen's action" lawsuit against the NEA in April 2002, arguing the NEA committed similar violations. The Attorney General later filed an identical suit against the NEA.A Public Disclosure...

To quote the old Mercedes Benz airbag commercial: “Some things in life are too important not to share.” The National Education Association’s national convention begins today at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. Outside, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (a Washington State think tank) is parking a truck with a billboard highlighting some of the expenditures the NEA listed on its 2004 federal financial disclosure forms. The billboard is too important (and good) not to share:

...Mr. Schwarzenegger's goals as governor include shaking up Sacramento, where an intransigent legislature beholden to special interests had turned the state into an economic basket case. Arnold does have something to show for his efforts to date, insofar as the fiscal bleeding seems to have stopped. California's credit rating is out of the gutter, and the economy has created a quarter-million new jobs in the past year. Still, important reforms remain unaddressed, and the passage of Proposition 75, also known as "paycheck protection," would go a long way toward ending California politics-as-usual. By forcing public-sector unions to get written permission...

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation has released its Analysis of the 2004 Governor's Election. Ignore the crap from the former Attorney General's "Task Force on Symbolic Gestures Designed to Bamboozle the Citizens Into Thinking They're Getting Election Reform". The EFF's report is the real deal.