ELEC Lobbying Report Reveals a Weak, Under-Resourced NJEA Lobbying Effort for Pension Improvement. No Wonder It Failed.

New Jersey’s Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) issued its annual report on lobbying for 2025, and the results confirm what Sunlight documented in its recent report: For 12 months in the middle of its Pension Justice/Tier 1 for Everyone campaign, NJEA leadership prioritized former-President Sean Spiller’s long-shot run for governor over the pension campaign. The result was a truncated, under-resourced lobbying effort for pensions that didn’t even make ELEC’s top ten for spending or lobbying contacts. Overall, the NJEA spent a mere $295,312 on lobbying in 2025 (including its in-house staff), a small fraction of what the NJEA has spent historically on lobbying and an infinitesimal fraction of the $45 million spent on Spiller’s run. Despite all the showy fanfare, it’s no surprise that the pension effort failed. The ELEC numbers further confirm that NJEA leadership failed its members.

Pension bills not in top ten for lobbying contacts. One of ELEC’s measures is the amount lobbying contacts, which much be reported and usually concentrate on “a relative handful of bills.” In 2025, the top ten bills for lobbying contacts included the budget (#1) as well as environmental and healthcare-related bills. Noticeably absent from the top ten were either of the NJEA’s Pension Justice/Tier 1 for Everyone bills, which were introduced in both the assembly (A5158/5160) and senate (S3997/3998). The NJEA made a big show of delivering a petition signed by 112,000 members to the legislature as part of a campaign to lobby for the bills, but apparently when it came to actual lobbying contacts with legislators, it was a relatively weak effort. Didn’t even make the top ten.

NJEA not in top ten for spending. Another way to measure lobbying activity is by spending. ELEC makes clear that spending includes both lobbying as well as issue advocacy (communications with the general public advocating for an issue — like pensions). The top ten included #1 New Jersey Realtors at $1.4 million, as well as labor unions, business associations, and individual corporations. Once again, the NJEA is entirely absent from the top ten. That’s because the NJEA spent a mere $295,312. And that includes the NJEA’s own in-house government relations staff.

$295,312 is a small fraction of what the NJEA has spent historically. ELEC’s Table 4 shows just how muted the NJEA’s 2025 lobbying was compared to what the NJEA has spent I the past. The top annual lobbying spenders are ranked by year. Here are the top-five highest annual expenditures:

• $11,259,886 by NJEA in 2011
• $10,348,911 by NJEA in 2015
• $6,255530 by NJEA in 2020
• $6,240,028 by NJEA in 2019
• $4,717250 by Verizon in 2006

So the NJEA has the top four annual lobbying expenditures since 1996. Sure makes 2025’s $295,312 look paltry.

And an infinitesimal fraction of the $45 million for Spiller. The $295,312 looks even smaller when compared to the $45 million spent on former-President Sean Spiller’s disastrous run for governor in the 2025 Democratic primary. The numbers say it all.

NJEA leadership failed teachers and doomed pension improvement. In Sunlight’s recent report, we documented how, right in the middle of the NJEA’s Pension Justice/Tier 1 for Everyone campaign, the the entire organization — leadership, money, personnel, resources — was shifted from pensions to Spiller’s run. That included the head of Government Relations, who was tasked with developing Spiller’s campaign plan, and now we can see that it must have included her Government Relations staff as well. $295,312 simply doesn’t allow for much lobbying by paid staff.

All of which is to say that, as we detailed in our report and as the ELEC numbers confirm, NJEA leadership failed its members. It prioritized Spiller’s long-shot candidacy, which teachers did not support, over pension improvements, which were teachers’ top priority. Lobbying for pensions was pushed into the lame duck session and predictably failed. And now we know that despite the showy fanfare, the lobbying effort was weak and underfunded. More show than substance.

What a scandal.