If you want to teach in a government school in Orange County, you will pay a bribe to the unions. If you don’t, which is your legal right, you will be isolated, not get promoted or considered for an Administrative position. Want friends, someone to talk with at lunch time—pay the union bribe.
So, when bribe money is used to defeat school officials elected by the public, you wonder what would happen if this was a fair fight. Think the teachers wanted the money they earned spent on politics? I bet they prefer to keep the money they earn, instead of being pressured into giving it to an organization that promotes racist candidates, Biden inflation—and more bribes.
“More than 85% of the $227,000 raised by recall supporters came from over 400 individuals giving an average of about $450 each, with the rest coming mostly from teachers’ unions. More than 1 in 10 of the donations came from people who listed their employer as Orange Unified, including more than 25 teachers and board member Andrea Yamasaki.
The money raised, said the recall movement’s co-chair, Darshan Smaaladen, “reflects the passion for our schools and our students in the district, and the care that our entire community has that we have great public schools.”
Unions hate freedom and education. I pity the kids in this school district—it is time to get out.
Grassroots contributions fueled bid to oust two from Orange County school board
Teachers, community members gave money to help the recall
MALLIKA SESHADRI AND DANIEL J. WILLIS, edsource, 4/23/24 https://edsource.org/2024/contributions-fueled-grassroots-bid-to-oust-two-from-orange-county-school-board/708753
A grassroots movement propelled by small contributions from teachers and local residents ousted two board members from an Orange County school district who supported controversial causes.
The victory came despite opposing big money contributions from conservative organizations, Republican political figures and business leaders.
More than 85% of the $227,000 raised by recall supporters came from over 400 individuals giving an average of about $450 each, with the rest coming mostly from teachers’ unions. More than 1 in 10 of the donations came from people who listed their employer as Orange Unified, including more than 25 teachers and board member Andrea Yamasaki.
The money raised, said the recall movement’s co-chair, Darshan Smaaladen, “reflects the passion for our schools and our students in the district, and the care that our entire community has that we have great public schools.”
By contrast, just under a third of the nearly $260,000 raised by opponents of the recall came from 115 individual donors, with the majority coming from conservative groups — led by the Lincoln Club of Orange County, which describes itself as “the oldest and largest conservative major donor organization in the state of California.”
Contributions also came from the re-election campaigns of Assemblymember Bill Essayli and Orange County Board of Education member Jorge Valdez, both Republicans, and the law firm of Shawn Steel, co-founder of the successful campaign to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003.
The donations are listed in disclosure forms filed Feb. 17, with some additional large donations reported before the election in early March. Board members Madison Miner and Rick Ledesma — who were repeatedly accused of promoting their own political ideologies at the expense of student learning and well-being — were removed when the recall passed by 3,500 votes.
Following the money
The No OUSD Recall group received a number of hefty donations — and was led by the Lincoln Club of Orange County, which gave a series of donations totaling $80,500, just under the $83,261given by all individuals to that same campaign.
The Lincoln Club’s donations, which came from their State PAC and Issues PAC, accounted for 46% of the total campaign’s organizational contributions and 31% of donations across the board.
The Lincoln Club of Orange County is funded by various business groups, and more than half of its income comes from the group Angelenos for Outstanding State Leadership, which gets all its money from one organization singly funded by the McDonald’s Corp.
The McDonald’s Corp. did not respond to EdSource’s multiple requests for comment.
On top of the contributions from the Lincoln Club, three organizations connected to Mark Bucher — the CEO of the California Policy Center, a think tank that stands for the belief that “until we rein in government union power, there’s little hope for reform in our state” — collectively gave $66,000.
Bucher said in an interview with EdSource that he “was always an advocate” for the donations to the campaign.
He also said he previously served on the board of the Lincoln Club and that he left about a year ago.He claimed that unions have “financed the campaigns of just about every elected official,” and that the donations were an attempt to “offset, very frankly, corrupt practices.”
Bucher, who supported the election of Ledesma and Miner, also said that “the trustees that got recalled were doing a spectacular job of representing parents and citizens and kids, and they were attacked constantly for it, and school board meetings have been a circus. It’s just ridiculous.”
He added that his future in political advocacy and spending, including in the upcoming November election, depends on the candidates and issues at stake.
The law firm of Shawn Steel — the co-founder of the recall campaign, who has also served as the Republican Party of California’s national committeeman and wrote for the California Policy Center — also supported the No on Recall movement. Assemblyman Essayli, R-Riverside, who authored a failed statewide Assembly bill that would have required schools across California to notify parents if their child may be transgender, also contributed.
His bill AB 1314 laid the foundation for a similar policy that has been adopted by more than a half-dozen school districts throughout the state.
The Lincoln Club of Orange County’s executive director, Seth Morrison, along with Bucher criticized the teachers’ unions for backing the recall effort, and Morrison also claimed they were “tied in with a larger Democratic Party.”
He said that “they were looking for an excuse to do something like this. This is a bigger thing for them. …That’s something we saw, and we’re happy to engage to defend the people who just got elected.”
On the other hand, the recall campaign collected more money for their campaign from a number of individual contributions.
Inform everyone about the Janus decision. They do not have to belong to unions anymore if they support political or religious causes you oppose. California created laws immediately after this decisions that does not allow employers or employees to tell anyone about this right under penalty of criminal prosecution, loss of employment, and also gives the right to civil suit to anyone to pursue against the whistleblower.