It's children themselves and what's happening in the schools. We're looking to get the best possible programs into the system. No one has suggested that the dozens of school committee members who have received money from the unions have sought to return the favor in any way. And it would be simplistic to suggest that the money teachers' unions' PACs have given to candidates for any office has won elected officials' support in return. In Rhode Island's General Assembly, PAC contributions are just one of several factors that have resulted in teachers' unions having many sympathetic ears.
Perseverance is another.
They're in the hallway, talking to legislator friends, reviewing hearings and bills, getting people to sponsor bills. It's a permanent presence.'' What is particularly unfair about that, Crowley says, is that there is no counterbalancing lobby group that enjoys anywhere close to comparable power. And school committees give nothing to political campaigns. David Dumas, a member of the House for more than a decade and now its Parliamentarian, says other lobbyists would do well to take a page out of the teachers' unions' book on lobbying. They never get familiar with everybody.