Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is introducing a bill on Tuesday that would bar the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA), from trying to influence Congress through lobbying, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
Blackburn is introducing the legislation after sponsoring another bill that would revoke the congressional charter of the NEA. In a statement to Breitbart News, the senator said the NEA has “abandoned its mission of supporting America’s teachers and students in the name of pushing its far-left political agenda.”
“The NEA has become nothing more than a radical-left activist group, and it has no business using its status as a congressionally chartered entity to push woke gender ideology, antisemitism, and propaganda on America’s students,” she said.
The bill is called “Terminating Education Association Congressional Handouts Act” or the “Teach Act,” and would also require the NEA to submit an annual certification to the Secretary of Education “containing assurance that the corporation has not engaged in any such lobbying activities.” The legislation would mandate the NEA to maintain records for the federal government to perform an audit of the certification.
Under the bill, the NEA would be penalized for noncompliance by having its status as a federally chartered corporation terminated. The NEA was founded in 1857 and received its charter from Congress in 1906. The federal charter established the union’s status as a nonprofit organization under federal law and acknowledged its mission and purpose.
Blackburn’s office pointed to several of the NEA’s recent political priorities as grounds for the legislation. Most recently, the NEA voted to severe ties with the Anti-Defamation League and to “defend democracy against Trump’s embrace of fascism by using term facism [sic] in NEA materials to correctly characterize Donald Trump’s program and actions,” according to documents obtained by conservative education expert Corey A. DeAngelis.
Under the leadership of NEA President Becky Pringle, the NEA partnered with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which has advocated for infusing gender ideology into K-12 education and encouraged schools to hide a child’s “gender identity” from their parents.
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In 2021, the organization adopted measures to support critical race theory. The NEA was also one of the teachers unions leading the charge to keep schools from reopening in 2020 and 2021, and allegedly played a role in influencing CDC guidance.
In the 2024 election cycle, 98 percent of NEA political donations went to Democrats, according to an Open Secrets report.
The NEA did not respond to request for comment by time of publication.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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