Stephen Caruso and the crew at Spotlight PA did some trememndous work on Pensylvania campaign contributions back in March and it deserved more attention than it got at the time. But it has a lot to tell us about who some Pennsylvania politicians are deeply indebted to when it comes to education.
The big industries playing in PA politics are energy, gaming, transportation and, surprise, K-12 education-- more specifically, the charter school industry (health care and real estate get a separate article). The researchers at Spotlight PA looked at contributions from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2024. Over those two years, lawmakers raised over $42 million-- $17 million by Shapiro, and $25 by the other lawmakers.
Of that $42 million, over $10 million came from those four industries. Add to that another $7.6 million that those industries contributed to party caucus political committees.
Of that almost $17 mill, just under $9 million came from teachers’ unions, charter school operators, and private school backers.
"Yeah," I hear someone complain. "That teachers' union spends a lot of political money, and the privatizers have to try to keep up."
Sure. Spotlight PA found that of the almost $9 million, under $1.2 million came from the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) through their politicazl action wing (PACE-- which is funded by teacher contributions but cannot, by law, be funded with dues money).
The bulk of the rest of that money comes from two sources-- the Commonwealth Children's Choice Fund and Students First PAC.
Students First PAC emerged in 2010, and it is very simply, Pennsylvania gazillionaire Jeffrey Yass dressed up in a PAC suit. He is their sole contributor. It appears they haven't even bothered to maintain a website since shortly after their founding. Yass is the richest man in the state, a guy who won his initial stake playing poker, then moved into the investment biz.
Who does Students First PAC mostly give money to these days? Mainly the Commonwealth Children's Choice Fund. The website Transparency USA shows CCCF taking in $31,763,400. Of that, $31,505,000 came from Students First PAC. The #2 contributor is Clay Hamlin with a measley $100K. The Commonwealth Children's Choice Fund turned around and spent $33,579,570. Of that (take a deep breath), $27,234,761.63 was handed off to the Commonwealth Leaders Fund; that group and CCCF are the two Political Action Committees of Commonwealth Partners, a group that says it "engages entrepreneurs to lead free-market change in Pennsylvania," and they do appear to involve more than just Jeff Yass.
So Yass through Students Firsts PAC and Commonwealth Children's Fund is spending millions and millions of dollars to elect and support the GOP, especially the part of it that wants to privatize education. Some of the money coming into the races is astonishing. Spotlight PA found $1.4 million from privatizers to help PA State Senate President Pro Tem Kim Ward-- far more than came in from other sectors and far more than raised by Dem candidates. And that pile of money came in despite the fact that Ward ran unopposed in 2024! What the heck did she need over a million dollars for?
The House GOP Campaign Committee pulled in $3.5 million from the K-12 privatizer crowd; the Senate GOP committee drew $1.9 million. Meanwhile the corresponding Dem committees together pulled in barely $600K.
So yeah-- a million dollars plus being put into campaigns by a union that is bundling the contributions of a tens of thousands of working teachers is totally as significant as a few million dollars being pumped in basically from one individual. Absolutely the same thing. But how wild to imagine that Pennsylvania politics for the past decade or two might have unfolded completely differently if one man hadn't hit a winning streak playing poker. How wild to imagine that if just one guy suddenly cvhanged his mind, state politics would suddenly lurch in a whole new direction. Interesting times we live in.
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