A think tank is taking legal action against the New Jersey Education Association after it funneled more than $40 million into its then-president’s unsuccessful bid for governor.

The Fairness Center, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that it says provides “free legal services to those hurt by public-sector union officials,” is representing two teachers in a lawsuit in the state Superior Court against the NJEA and Sean Spiller, the union president whose term concluded at the end of August. Despite the union’s record-breaking investment to support Spiller, he came in fifth place during June’s Democratic primary with 11 percent of the vote.

Marie Dupont and Ann Marie Pocklembo, educators in Roselle and Hamilton Township, respectively, allege in the lawsuit that the union “breached its contracts” by allocating money collected from teachers’ dues to Garden State Forward, a group funded by the NJEA that the suit also accuses the union of having “deliberately and concertedly took steps to conceal the existence of.” (Garden State Forward contributed $40 million to Working New Jersey, a super PAC that boosted Spiller in the primary.)

…

Read the full article here!