well as we say in New Jersey when one campaign season ends the next election cycle begins and so it goes for the race to be the next governor of the Garden State this week one Democratic candidate Sean Spiller head of the state's largest public teachers union got a key platform a chance to get his message out directly to his 200,000 members at the nj's annual convention in Atlantic City but as Ted Goldberg reports some are questioning the Union's involvement and spending for spiller's campign pain for anyone who hasn't had enough politics this week the njaa convention in Atlantic City was also a campaign stop for Sean Spiller the union president is running for governor next year with support from many people in his Union the main thing that caught my eye with Spiller is because he fought education and anybody for kids or for me he continues to advocate for us and care about people and care about the students which is something I've observed him doing in the questions he asks would make a very good governor for the state Spiller will run against fellow Democrats including Newark mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey city mayor Steve Fulop the head of New Jersey's largest teachers union says his unique background is uniquely qualifying my lived experience I think is closer to most new jerseyans than uh anyone who served previously and certainly even those who are running now right I say that as someone with our our two young kids and uh seeing that right that $20,000 cost for for for for for Early Education Plus the the 10 grand for early care and after care Spiller is a member of the NJ PBS Community Advisory Board the njaa gave nearly $1 million to its own political action committee or pack which in turn gave 7.5 million to a dark money group called working New Jersey they're not technically affiliated with Spiller but they've sent mailers on his behalf I can confidently say that the vast majority of them have no idea uh and and because we have very active Facebook pages I get teachers coming on it all the time and I'm constantly told that I'm wrong Mike Lilley leads the sunlight policy Center of New Jersey which investigated and found that the union gave to spiller's pack he's concerned that Educators Statewide don't know that some of their union dues are helping to try and get Spiller to the governor's mansion to kind of force them to fund spiller's personal political career without their knowledge without their consent that that strikes me as a big problem Spiller downplayed this saying the njaa frequently donates to candidates at all levels of local government they're also saying I'm going to take the time to find pro public education candidates for every seat in every space to so that they can help me do my job better so we can serve our students we've always been in that space we do it proudly uh and and we are part of the big reason why as a team uh we have the best schools in the nation Lilley says there are no campaign Finance laws being broken but he wonders why the NJEA is funding someone who's under an active investigation by the state for allegedly misusing state health benefits is this who teachers would choose to support is this the kind of candidate where you know they they would say yeah I want my money spent there well I have a feeling that the NJEA doesn't want to don't want doesn't want them asking themselves that question which is why they hide this most teachers I spoke to did not have a problem with part of their dues going to the head of their Union some who did disagree would not speak on camera if we do it for other candidates why can't we do it for him just because he one of our own that don't mean we don't help him it's good for us to put it into a position for a person that we know well and we think is going to do good things for this state it's kind of interesting to think about in that light because then you you never know who they're going to endorse um but usually I think because we're a union we're uh a family I think that they really do have our best interests at heart we support uh you know collectively being able to raise our voices we support collectively being able to pull our dollars to compete with those Millionaires and billionaires that we've seen in uh in so many spaces and ways NJEA is an underwriter for NJ Spotlight news working New Jersey has pledged to spend $35 million in this race without specifying which candidate almost ensuring the most expensive gubernatorial Primary in State history in Atlantic City I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music]