News & Brews April 15, 2022
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Report: Public-sector union membership in PA relatively stable since Janus
According to a new report by the Manhattan Institute’s Daniel DiSalvo, the percent of public sector employees in Pennsylvania who are union members increased slightly—from 53% to 53.3%—from 2018 to 2021. DiSalvo notes that since the Supreme Court’s landmark Janus v. AFSCME ruling in 2018—which said public workers could not be forced to pay a union as a condition of employment—”[t]he percentage of public employees belonging to unions has remained largely flat.” He urges, however, better reporting requirements for government unions. Read more here.
Snapshot: Where do NEA members’ dues go?
Speaking of public sector unions, our friends at Americans for Fair Treatment analyzed the National Education Association’s latest filing with the Department of Labor and found, “The NEA spent a total of $374 million during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, 18% of which went to political activities. A meager 9% of the union’s spending was on ‘representational activities,’ or money that is spent directly to support its members. Another 32% went to ‘contributions, gifts, and grants,’ spending that is also often political in nature.” Click here to read more and see a partial list of leftist organizations the NEA supports.
GOP gubernatorial candidates await ‘hoped-for’ Trump endorsement
The LNP notes that former President “Trump is so unpredictable that it’s difficult to predict if he will make an endorsement, and if so, who among the nine candidates vying for the GOP nomination in the May 17 primary he would favor.” (Well, we know whom he would not favor based on his recent statement.) But it’s sort of anyone’s guess whom Trump might endorse—if, indeed, he decides to endorse. Read more here (paywall, but you can register for two free article views if you’d like to read this).
WSJ Editorial: ‘A police comeback in Philadelphia’
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes, “The latest lurch away from the left on crime and policing is occurring in Philadelphia, the city of an unbrotherly spike in murder and mayhem.” The Ed Board points to recent proposals by Mayor Jim Kenney and two members of the city council to increase the number of officers and/or increase officer pay. Read more here (paywall).
‘Ghost guns’ story backfires on Shapiro?
In the wake of an NBC news story on so-called ‘ghost guns,’, a group of gun rights organizations is trying to get the Legislature to investigate and impeach Attorney General Josh Shapiro for allegedly breaking the law. The Inquirer reports, “For the story, a reporter used a hidden camera to purchase a ghost gun kit at a suburban Philadelphia gun show and later gave it to Shapiro’s agents, who assembled it and fired it at a range while being filmed. What’s illegal about that? The gun groups, working on an assumption, claim Shapiro’s agents allowed the reporter to keep the gun and take it to New York. It’s illegal under federal law to give or sell a gun to a person from another state.” Shapiro’s office denies the accusation.