We learned a very important truth about NJEA President/gubernatorial candidate Sean Spiller from the results of Tuesday’s Democratic primary: he was strongly rejected by the very people who know him the best: the voters of Montclair and members of his own union.

MONTCLAIR:  Former-Montclair Councilman and Mayor Spiller received a shocking 2.5% of the Montclair vote, according to the New Jersey Globe (in another excellent piece by Joey Fox).  Incredibly, Spiller only received only 238 votes in Montclair.  Spiller is a long-time Montclair resident who served on the town council for 8 years and another 4 as mayor. So Montclair voters know Spiller very well and their rejection of him speaks volumes about Spiller’s “controversial” and “tumultuous” tenure as mayor, as detailed by the excellent Montclair Local.  There’s a reason he didn’t seek re-election: he would have lost badly.  Montclair residents have made two things very clear: they did not want Spiller as mayor and they did not want him as governor.

NJEA MEMBERS: Spiller received a total of 84,367 votes, finishing 5th overall among the six Democratic candidates. Let’s break that down as a percentage of NJEA members. On its website, the NJEA claims 200,000 members. (We know it’s less than that, but let’s give them full credit). Sean Spiller received 84,367 votes, so if every one of those votes was a NJEA member, 42% of NJEA members voted for Spiller.  But of course we know that every one of those votes was not a NJEA member, so Spiller likely received substantially less than 42% of NJEA members votes.  In other words, it’s highly likely that a large majority of NJEA members did NOT vote for Spiller.  This despite the fact that over the past school year, the NJEA has been turned into one, big “Spiller for Governor” Super PAC.  NJEA members have made one thing very clear: they did not want Spiller as governor.

And yet NJEA members were forced to spend $45 million of their hard-earned, mandatory dues supporting Spiller’s vanity run (“weird Spiller ego trip“). That amounted to well over $500 per vote, as simply astounding figure. No wonder NJEA leadership (including the conflicted Spiller) continues to try to hide the truth from teachers, claiming that Spiller had a “strong showing” that was “much stronger than expected” when the actual results show the opposite. 

We say again: this is a scandal of the first order and there are many unanswered questions about how and where the $45 million was spent.  NJEA leadership — and especially the conflicted President Spiller — have a lot of explaining to do.  They should be required to explain it.