San Antonio, Tex.—A national network of far-right think tanks has launched a nationwide campaign 
intended to strike a “mortal blow” against the American left by breaking public-sector unions. “Big government unions are the biggest sources of funding and political muscle for the left,” Tracie Sharp, president and CEO of the State Policy Network, wrote in a 10-page fundraising letter obtained by the UK Guardian. Cutting off their ability to collect agency fees from workers they represent, she added, would “defund and defang” them, “permanently depriving the left from access to millions of dollars in dues extracted from unwilling union members every election cycle,” and “deliver the mortal blow to permanently break its stranglehold on our society.” The network, an alliance of more than 65 state-based think tanks, held its annual meeting in San Antonio Aug. 29 to Sept. 1, with a discussion on “labor reform” featuring Vincent Vernuccio of Michigan’s Mackinac Center, the think tank behind Michigan’s ban on the union shop, and Tom McCabe of the Freedom Foundation, which has canvassed more than 10,000 home-care and child-care workers in Washington and Oregon, urging them to quit their union. The SPN, as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is exempt from taxation, but is also supposed to abstain from trying to influence the outcome of elections. Read more
