Mitt Romney: Teachers Unions' Contributions To Political Campaigns Should Be Limited

Mitt Romney: Teachers Unions' Contributions To Political Campaigns Should Be Limited
The Huffington Post
By Mollie Reilly
09/26/2012

Mitt Romney embraced campaign finance reform on Tuesday. But rather than targeting unlimited corporate contributions or lending his support to existing campaign finance legislation, Romney instead suggested limiting teachers unions' donations to politicians.

The Republican presidential candidate came down on teachers unions for supporting political candidates during an NBC-sponsored forum on education in New York City. During the "Education Nation" event, moderator Brian Williams asked Romney about his thoughts on the teachers' strike in Chicago.

"I don’t know that I would prevent teachers from being able to strike,” Romney said, acknowledging that "allowing to teachers to strike on matters such as comensation" is within their rights.

Instead, Romney said the focus should be on removing the teachers unions' money from the political equation.

“We simply can’t have a setup where the teachers unions can contribute tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of politicians and then those politicians, when elected, stand across from them at the bargaining table, supposedly to represent the interests of the kids," Romney said. "I think it’s a mistake. I think we’ve got to get the money out of the teachers unions going into campaigns. It’s the wrong way for us to go. We’ve got to separate that.”

Romney also noted that the unions tend to be particularly friendly to Democratic candidates.

The former governor's comments fall in line with arguments made against the Supreme Court's controversial Citizens United decision, in which the court ruled that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts on campaigns under the First Amendment. Romney has previously declined to criticize the ruling, telling the Portsmouth Herald's editorial board that he believed "their decision was a correct decision."

Romney has advocated for overturning legislation like the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act, instead supporting unlimited individual contributions to campaigns as long as there is full disclosure...




Is it possible that Romney is upset with teachers because they didn't give him a good science education?

Mitt Romney Wonders Why Ann Romney's Airplane Windows Don't Roll Down Huffington Post
09/24/2012

...After his wife's plane was forced to make an emergency landing this weekend, Romney told the Los Angeles Times, he was worried for her safety. The candidate then continued on a bizarre tangent that showed just how little the Republican nominee understands about flight.

“I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney told the paper. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly."

Romney said the biggest problem in a distressed aircraft is that "the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous."...