Letters - Letter to the Editor

National Review, Nov 25, 2002

--We were disappointed by Bernadette Malone's wildly inaccurate depiction of the Florida Education Association ("The Zeal Against Jeb," Nov. 11).

Ms. Malone contends that our association took out a mortgage on one of our buildings and used $1.7 million in equity to finance our support for Bill McBride, the candidate challenging Gov. Jeb Bush. That contention is totally wrong.

Our association came into existence in 2000, upon the merger of the Florida Teaching Profession/National Education Association and the Florida Education Association/United. Prior to the merger there were two budgets, two headquarters, and two mortgages. We did take out a mortgage in December of 2000, but it was merely to switch from one financial institution to another and was for the balance only. No cash changed hands. That year the organizations filed separate reports with the U.S. Department of Labor; the following year just one report was filed. This explains the budget discrepancies: The first year listed only the property owned by the former FTP/NEA and ignored the filing by the former FEA/U.

Although we have opposed the governor's policies, there was no "hit" authorized on him at our assembly in May 2001. Neither will union dues be raised to finance our support for McBride.

Aaron Wallace, Chief of Staff

Florida Education Association

Tallahassee, Fla.

--Bernadette Malone replies: The FEA may indeed have merged two mortgages on their buildings, as Mr. Wallace claims. But it's difficult to tell from public records, because the FEA's 990 tax form, filed with the IRS, says there was no existing mortgage on the second headquarters that Mr. Wallace mentions. FEA spokesman Mark Pudlow says that's because the second building is owned by a holding company. Public records also show the FEA took out a $1 million line of credit when it signed its new mortgage in December 2000. But Mr. Pudlow says the FEA regularly takes out lines of credit to ensure that his organization can get through the summer months without revenue from teachers' dues.

Making this story all the more difficult to understand is the response FEA president Maureen Dinnen gave me when I asked her point-blank if her union had indeed mortgaged its building to contribute funds to Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill McBride. She essentially confirmed the rumor circulating around Tallahassee, and maintained there was nothing illegal or shameful about mortgaging FEA headquarters for a candidate.

"Maureen was probably a little confused that day," Mark Pudlow suggested in a follow-up conversation. "She really just knows the broad outline of things." Understandably, the rest of us are a little confused, too. The paper trail raises as many questions as it answers, and Ms. Dinnen's responses in our October 21 interview contradict the subsequent statements of her staff.

--I could hug Jonah Goldberg ("And Another Thing . . .," Oct. 28) for having the guts to put the whining sisterhood coalition in its place!

If feminists want to raise their clubs and whack a ball down the fairways, let them form their own golf club, preferably in Kabul, Afghanistan, where lives the truly oppressed female. Perhaps then our stalwart males could come out of their closets and resume all the gestures of chivalrous behavior toward us.

Come on, guys. Don't leave Jonah and Hootie Johnson to carry the torch alone!

Claire Nenin

New York, N.Y.