(The Center Square) – Commonwealth Foundation Labor and Policy Senior Director David Osborne says Chicago’s growing reputation as the place where public sector unions flex plenty of political muscle is more than well deserved.
Osborne points to a new Commonwealth Foundation report highlighting how public sector unions across Illinois spent nearly $30 million on state races over the 2023-24 election cycle, or far more than what union officials in any other state dedicated to such causes.
At $5.5 million, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson tops the State Government Union Pac Money List of those most benefiting from government employment unions’ support. In addition to Johnson, at least six other state lawmakers land on the list’s Top 20, led by House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch (D-Hillside) at No. 2 and Illinois Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) at No. 4.
“In the state of Illinois, political spending is bigger than in any other state,” Osborne told The Center Square. “Unions seem very focused on who gets elected to be the mayor of Chicago and the governor of the state. What you’ve got really is a downward spiral in Illinois where the kinds of unions that have gotten so powerful have really done it at the expense of taxpayers, and then they’re pouring more money into getting the right kind of people elected for them.”
With researchers adding that almost 96% of all donations for Illinois-level candidates went to Democrats, Osborne said it’s past time someone addresses the imbalance.
“Public sector unions, they’re not often talked about as the cause of problems,” he said. “We often look to high taxes, bigger government, economic policies, but really what’s driving states and cities to enact policies that are harmful to individuals, that raise taxes, that grow the size of government beyond its purpose are public sector unions.
He said public sector unions have all the incentive in the world “to bring in new public employees, to bloat government so that in the end they can have more members, which means more influence and power.”
With the system being as broken as he views it, Osborne said there are few winners in the state.
“Taxpayers are definitely losing under this system, but I also want to urge the public to understand that teachers and other public employees who are represented by unions are also losing,” he said. “I think they’ve lost their voice. I’m not nearly as concerned about the dollar amounts as I am the fact it’s public sector unions. Public sector unions represent public employees, and they sit down and negotiate with the very people that get elected to office to hash out deals.”
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With Commonwealth Foundation researchers arriving at their findings using publicly available information, data shows Illinois was followed in union spending by California at $25.8 million, Washington at $18.6 million, Massachusetts at $17.9 million, and Pennsylvania at $12.8 million.
Overall, researchers found the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Service Employees International Union, and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees combined to spend upwards of $915 million on political and ideological causes, with almost all the funding going to left-wing causes and candidates.
