Because the mandatory payment of union dues one of their biggest sources of campaign cash... is steadily ending.
Great article here: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06 ... p=trending" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The biggest practical effect of Walker’s law, and the ones that preceded it and succeeded it around the nation, comes not in collective bargaining but in mandatory dues payments. Prior to Walker’s law, the state acted as an agent for AFSCME and other unions, automatically collecting dues directly from worker paychecks.
Whether a government worker opted to join the union or not, the money came out. Unions defend the practice of compulsory dues payments on the grounds that if dues were optional, workers would opt out in droves and sap the power of the organization.
It turns out that they were right. For the AFSCME local in Wisconsin that covers many of the state workers, membership dropped nearly 70 percent in the first year under Walker’s law. Formerly forced to share their salaries with the union, government workers opted to keep the dough instead.
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This is a big deal for Democrats. While President Obama is able to raise plenty of money for himself by tapping well-heeled Democrats on Wall Street, in the entertainment industry and elsewhere, Democrats from county clerks to U.S. senators will need billions of dollars over the next decade to stay in power. You can’t get elected superintendent of schools by raffling off dinner with George Clooney. You need the money that comes from the dues paid by the teachers whom you oversee.
The cycle for five decades has been that unions support the campaigns of Democrats who promise to expand the power of unions. Thus empowered, the unions have more money with which to elect more Democrats who further expand union powers. And so it goes.
Or, so it went.