Big Labor Spends Big for McAuliffe

Add Big Labor to the ever growing list of left wing special interest groups spending heavily to elect Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe governor of Virginia governor in the election that will be held on Tuesday.

According to financial documents of the McAuliffe campaign reported at the Virginia Public Access Project, the McAuliffe campaign had raised over $26 million in cash and in-kind contributions as of September 30, 2013. Of this amount, more than $2.7 million came from a dozen major unions, each of which contributed at least $50,000 in cash.

The list of the dozen Big Labor contributors supporting McAuliffe is a “who’s who” of the country’s largest unions: the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Firefighters International Association, the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Communication Workers of America, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades, the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry, the United Steelworkers of America, and the United Steelworkers of America, District 8.

Cash contributions from these dozen unions totaled $1.69 million. AFSCME topped the list of heavy hitters, giving McAuliffe $300,000. Other top donors included the United Food and Commercial Workers at $200,000, the Communication Workers of America at $150,000, the American Federation of Teachers at $125,000, and the National Education Association at $100,000.

In addition,  three unions, SEIU, AFSCME, and the United Steelworkers of America, donated a total of $765,412 in in-kind services. SEIU provided a whopping $425,776 of this amount.

Pat Mullins, Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, criticized McAuliffe for his ties to Big Labor. “Big Labor’s unrelenting support of Terry McAuliffe is clear indication that he’ll back their job-killing union agenda,” Mullins said in a statement reported by the Free Beacon on Monday.

In contrast to McAuliffe’s $26 million, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli had raised only $16 million for his campaign in cash and in-kind contributions as of September 30, 2013. Of this amount, almost 50 percent– $7.9 million–came from one source, the Republican Governors Association.

Breitbart News was unable to find a single union contribution to Cuccinelli in the publicly available records of his campaign’s financial reports posted at the Virginia Public Access Project website.