“President's Campaign Cash”: Fox Falsely Claims Teachers' Union Fee Will Be Used For Obama Re-Election

During the July 6 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy interviewed high school teacher Leslie Moyer about the National Education Association's recent decision to charge members an additional $10 fee. On-screen text suggested that this fee would go toward President Obama's re-election campaign:

Teachers campaign

In fact, as Media Matters has documented, the $10 fee will go toward efforts to limit threats to collective bargaining, like the recent legislation passed in Wisconsin. Further, as Education Week's blog Teacher Beat noted, the fees legally cannot go toward elective campaigns. A July 4 post stated:

And that's not all: 70.1 percent of the body, or 5,258 delegates, approved the amendment to the bylaws that authorize the $10-per-member annual assessment, 60 percent of which will be used primarily to support the Ballot Measure/Legislative Crisis fund, and the other 40 percent for national and state media campaigns. These funds can't support campaigns but can support messaging and action against things like anti-collective bargaining legislation.

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