Unions are acting as a toll booth on the road to unaccountable single-party power

Numbers do not lie the way politicians do. So when the National Institute for Labor Relations Research analyzed Department of Labor filings and found that labor unions directed more than $1.8 billion into Democratic campaigns and political causes during the 2024 cycle, with 90 percent or more flowing to one party, I followed the money the same way I would when vetting any investment.

I have spent 30 years managing private wealth, running hedge funds, and testifying in federal and state courts on fiduciary duty and securities fraud. What I found on the money trail was not worker advocacy, but a money-cycling machine.

Unions do not write personal checks. They collect dues from membership — teachers, construction workers, public employees — then steer voluntary PAC contributions through ActBlue, the Democrats’ preferred fundraising apparatus. The tilt is so extreme it would embarrass a slot machine. The National Education Association’s PAC raised nearly $27 million in the 2024 election cycle, virtually every dollar aimed at electing Democrats.

The four largest government unions — the NEA, the American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME, and the Service Employees International Union — spent more than $700 million on election-related activity in the 2021–22 cycle alone, with 96 percent flowing to Democratic candidates and organizations. That is not grassroots democracy — it is a toll booth on the road to single-party rule.

But the scandal here is not the partisan orientation — unions have leaned left for decades. The scandal is the opacity of the operation, the unwarranted influence being bought and the largely unexplored potential for fraud.

The union money flows primarily through ActBlue, the Democrats’ dominant small-dollar fundraising platform, which raised a combined $568 million for Democratic causes in the first quarter of 2026 alone.

As for the influence it buys, we saw the........

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