IEA political endorsements. Catch it if you can.
For a few days following the General Assembly adjournment there was a flurry of posts on the IEA web site about IEA political endorsements (actually IPACE recommendations). Members wrote in to say we shouldn’t recommend any House member who voted the wrong way on TRS or funding. Some leadership people wrote in and jabbered some more jabber about the importance of being at the table.
I went searching on the IEA web site for IPACE recommendation procedures.
As a past local president for ten years I’ve taken part in recommendation hearings. I had thought I had a general understanding of how they work, but they have always seemed to follow a vague set of rules that I had never actually been provided.
I searched. “IPACE recommendation procedures.” Nothing.
I emailed Government Relations. A few days later I got an email back with a pdf file attached. The person (I’m see no point in naming names of IEA staff employees) apologized for the fact that the procedures had been removed from the web site and promised they would be put back (they have).
This is what I understand the rules to be:
Local IEA leadership is invited to recommendation hearings. Local’s votes are weighted according to IPACE contributions.
The decision of the locals can be overruled by the state IPACE committee.
There are two general criteria. One is “electability” and the other is “performance over promise.”
This means that if an incumbent has voted in accord with issues that the state IPACE committee has identified as performance issues, only that candidate is invited to the recommendation hearing and only that candidate will be recommended. Even if the opposing candidate is preferred by the local members.
In the IEA, this is what democracy looks like.
This does not seem so different from New York, except this year we’ve added a “don’t cross us too badly” twist… the two State Senators from NYC who introduced legislation to allow senior teachers to be laid off first (it was a symbolic act, did not stand a chance), those two, Bing and Diaz Sr, they will likely be opposed no matter how well they vote on the rest of the menu.
This is an improvement.
Jonathan
I can definitely see how a “to get our money you can’t totally f**k us” clause would be an improvement over our present approach.
That issue first came up years ago when I was on the state IPACE Committee. The committee had voted to endorse Tom Dart over Judy Barr Topinka for State Treasurer. The IEA President at that time decided that was the wrong decision and worked to overturn it. We then spent a lot of time dealing with this “performing incumbent” issue. I still think not hearing both candidates is a big mistake. Sometimes there’s a better candidate out there than the “performing incumbent”. Actually, my favorite part was when Gus Savage was brought up as an example of a “performing incumbent” that we should have endorsed and wasn’t. The fact that Representative Savage had a reputation as being anti-semitic and had been involved in a sexual harassment incident while traveling overseas seemed to be less important than his voting record. It might be a good time for the IPACE Executive Committee to revisit this issue. Sometimes change is good.
By the way, the State IPACE Committee cannot actually overrule the local committee. It can refuse to concur with the local committee but cannot endorse a candidate without the local committee’s recommendation.
Thanks for that last clarification Ed. Although the process makes that almost a moot point.