Teaching Assistants' Association
UW- Madison
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Who Is Involved?
Plainly put, our TAA membership is involved. Our membership is the power behind our political organizing, and we need YOU to be involved. No matter who the candidates are in an election, or what the issues are, our organizing is done at the grassroots by our members.
There are three sets of people that make up the "who."
First, there are you and our TAA membership as activists. Second, there are members of our union that we want to organize and mobilize. Third, there are the candidates that we are working to elect and hold accountable on issues.
Candidates We Support
We support candidates for a variety of elected office, from the President of the United States to the state legislature in Wisconsin to the Common Council of the City of Madison. We endorse candidates through a democratic, member-driven process that is guided by our Political Education Committee. As part of AFT-Wisconsin, the South Central Federation, and the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, we work with our brothers and sisters in the union movement to back pro-labor candidates, and we often share endorsements with them.
In the spring of 2009, we are supporting candidates for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Supreme Court Justice, and Dane County Executive. Because of campaign finance rules, we are not allowed to post our endorsements on our website as a list. If you are a TAA member and would like to know who our union has endorsed, please contact our Political Education Committee.
How We Support Them
Endorsements The TAA supports the election of candidates in a few ways. One way is through an endorsement, where we formally state that our union is recommending to our members that they vote for a particular candidate or advocating to a broader population support for a particular candidate. Endorsements are completed through a democratic, membership-driven process and are backed by the full organizing efforts of our union.
Member-to-Member Voter Contact Because the best way to build support for candidates is for fellow union members to hear directly from their union brothers and sisters about who has been endorsed and why, we will build a significant grassroots member-to-member voter contact in all election cycles. We contact fellow union members through door-to-door canvassing, phone-banks, mail, and email. Organized people is how we build power.
TAA PAC Expenditures & Contributions Our political action committee, the TAA PAC, will make contributions to candidates as well as independent expenditures on behalf of candidates or around issues. Decisions about the expenditures and contributions of the TAA PAC are made by the chair of the Political Education Committee and the treasurer of the PAC along with the members of the Political Education Committee.
Building A Progressive, Pro-Labor, Pro-Education Majority In Wisconsin However, because the TAA and its members are affected by decisions by public officials beyond those who directly represent us and because we are part of broader labor and progressive movements, we will support and organize around the election of other pro-labor, pro-education, progressive candidates wherever we need to elect them. These decisions are made by our Political Education Committee, which is a representational body voted upon by our membership.
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