The Washington Education Association claims 32,000 members donate to its political action committee, which means 61 percent of teachers do not. The recommended donation is $27, or $2.25 per month, which would generate $864,000 in voluntary donations.

Because WEA officials’ appetite for electioneering is greater than that of the members, the WEA augments the voluntary PAC funds with direct contributions from the required dues and fees making up the union general fund. Also, all staffing for election-related activity is funded with general dues.

The Freedom Foundation’s report, “Unfree Speech,” quantified that only about half of WEA’s PAC was funded from contributions from voluntary donors.

State law permits a gross injustice by requiring workers, as a condition of employment, to be represented by a union that overcharges them for workplace representation and spends the excess on political activity.

The Washington Education Association is a private workplace representation enterprise that collects very high dues from its government-granted monopoly. It is no surprise that its electioneering efforts to control the budget, lawmakers and judiciary are extravagant.

Here is what the union’s leaders have been up to this year:

• Funding Stonier (D) 17th District House & attacking her opponent. WEA’s top priority is preserving Rep. Monica Stonier, in the Vancouver area who received more than $115,000 in WEA support two years ago and won by only 139 votes. WEA has spent a quarter million dollars on this house race. One $150,000 cable TV advertisement lied about the Freedom Foundation, and our attorney was able to get the advertisement withdrawn.

• Funding Wilson (D) 44th District House & attacking his opponent. Another priority WEA race is capturing a Republican-held seat in Snohomish County. So far, WEA has spent $120,000 on behalf of Michael Wilson and attacking Mark Harmsworth. Wilson has been in the news recently because a fellow teacher and coach allegedly enlisted student athletes to distribute Wilson’s campaign materials.

• Attacking O’Ban (R) 28th District Senate. In the crosshairs, too, is Sen. Steve O’Ban, the attorney responsible for the U.S. Supreme Court victory, Davenport vs. WEA. This and related litigation gave union officials a black eye with fines and penalties because of their illegal use of funds for electioneering. Evidently union executives have long memories. They spent nearly $100,000 against him in 2012 and have spent $31,000 in attacks so far.

• Attacking Hill (R) 45th District Senate. GOP Sen. Andy Hill in the 45th is getting hit with $12,600 in attack mailings.

• Donating to Supreme Court Justice incumbents. The WEA, which is the primary backer of the legal challenge to expand state education spending in the McCleary lawsuit, has in previous years invested heavily in Supreme Court justices. This year, WEA officials have invested $7,600 to keep all the incumbents on the court. The court correspondence with the Legislature has been getting more aligned with WEA rhetoric lately.

• Transferring funds to Democrat organizations. Of the voluntary funds collected by the WEA political action committee, $442,000 of the total was simply handed over to Democrat partisan political action committees.

• Funding a hijacking of the state budget. Entirely from general dues, union political bosses are bankrolling an initiative to derail the state budget process with an initiative to force the top spending priority to be the addition of 25,000 to the payroll. So far, WEA, NEA and local officials have spent $4.4 million of workplace representation dues and fees to add 25,000 new dues payers to their income stream.

• Telling members how to vote. Unknown amounts of required union dues and fees are used to fund union officials’ efforts to tell those in unionized workplaces how to vote. This campaign is exempt from reporting, but those represented by the union enterprise can receive a dozen contacts by election day. It is hard to believe that in the Land of the Free, people may be forced to fund their own political indoctrination

Teachers, if you disagree with being forced to fund attack ads and an initiative that puts union revenue ahead of teacher raises, you have the right to resign and opt out of paying for this kind of electioneering.

You could keep up to $300 which would otherwise be used on these kinds of excesses by simply sending this letter to WEA resigning and objecting to their overcharges.