Cross-posted from the archived Media Trackers Ohio site.
The DC headquarters of the AFL-CIO sent $49,297 to union campaign committee We Are Ohiobetween January 1 and June 30, 2013, more than 896 times the sum of $55 contributed by all other donors this year.
Dating back to the union front group’s inception, 95.65 percent of all contributions to We Are Ohio have come from labor unions.
As shown in the following updated version of a chart Media Trackers released in February, nothing about We Are Ohio’s “citizen-driven, community-based, bipartisan coalition” marketing is true.
Since the Ohio Education Association (OEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), AFL-CIO, and various arms of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) made up the “We Are Ohio” brand in early 2011, the campaign committee has received 47.7 percent of its funding from out-of-state unions and 47.95 percent of its funding from Ohio unions.
Labor unions’ cash donations and in-kind support to We Are Ohio dating back to 2011 currently total $40,386,794. This amount is 90 times greater than the sum contributed to We Are Ohio by individual Ohioans.
Lying to Ohio’s 11.5 million residents isn’t cheap; We Are Ohio’s single largest expenditure for the 2013 semiannual reporting period was $25,000 sent to The New Media Firm in DC, which describes itself as “a full service political media consulting and advertising agency specializing in the integration of television, radio and new media for Democratic candidates and progressive organizations.”
Ironically, We Are Ohio has paid the liberal DC consulting firm a total of more than $17.3 million to convince Ohio voters the group’s purpose is “protecting and creating jobs for all Ohioans.”
The union front group paid a total of $32,396 to Precision Media & Public Relations in New Albany from January 1 to June 30, and nearly all other expenditures during the reporting period were for legal services.
We Are Ohio, which is controlled by OEA’s executive director, reported a $94 payment to a Boston-based payroll service but has spent nothing on payroll this year, based on the organization’s latest filing with the secretary of state.
Once again, public records prove We Are Ohio is nothing more than a campaign committee created by Big Labor to wrap its selfish priorities in populist rhetoric. We Are Ohio ended June with slightly less than $100,000 on hand, but OEA has no qualms about squeezing millions out of members to serve union bosses’ purposes.