By Matt Rooney
Move over, Jeb Bush: NJEA President and Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller spent $40 million in June’s New Jersey Democrat gubernatorial primary only to finish fifth with less than 90,000 votes. That’s roughly $400 per vote!
At least two Garden State teachers are angry enough about how their dues are being spent to take the union to court.
Filed this week in Mercer County, Roselle teacher Dr. Marie Dupont and Hamilton Township teacher Ann Marie Pocklembo are the plaintiffs who believe the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) broke its membership contract (among other transgressions) when it dumped millions of dollars into Spiller’s quixotic vanity project.
“When I signed my union membership card, I chose not to support the union’s PAC,” explained Dupont, a mother of three and an immigrant. “Then I found out that a handful of union insiders spent $40 million of teachers’ dues—including mine—on the union president’s political ambitions. That’s wrong, and I believe it’s illegal.”
“I never agreed to bankroll a politician,” added Pocklembo, a 30-year veteran teacher. “It’s an obvious conflict of interest when the union president benefits from backroom deals to fund his own campaign with members’ money. It makes the union look shady and it undermines teachers’ trust.”
“By diverting members’ mandatory dues to its president’s gubernatorial campaign, while giving them the impression that funding the union PAC was purely optional, our teacher clients allege that the union broke the law and breached its fiduciary duty,” said Nathan McGrath, general counsel for the Fairness Center which is representing DuPont and Pocklembo in their litigation. “This lawsuit seeks to hold the union and Sean Spiller accountable for self-dealing instead of serving members’ best interests.”
You can read the complaint in Dupont & Pocklembo v. NJEA & Spiller below:
Dupont-Complaint-09.30.25
