(AgapePress) - A large teachers' union is Washington State is fighting for the right to use public school grounds to promote its liberal political activities.

In a case now before the State Supreme Court, the Washington Education Association (WEA) is attempting to preserve a lower-court ruling that allows the union to use school mail and e-mail systems to deliver political campaign information such as endorsements. But the Public Disclosure Commission says the ruling violates a state law prohibiting the use of public buildings and dollars for political activity.

Marsha Richards, a spokeswoman for the Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation, says in recent years, there has been growing suspicion over the WEA's agenda -- due in large part, she says, to a few lawsuits.

"The [Washington] attorney general ... has sued the union twice, and those lawsuits have resulted in ... more than a million dollars in fines and penalties and refunds to teachers because the union is using teachers' dollars in violation of state laws to promote political causes," Richards explains.

According to Richards, the union is acting hypocritically. "The union's defense on this is that teachers should have free speech in their schools," she says, "and we would say it's ironic that a union that forces teachers to support its political message would be talking about [its] free-speech rights.

"Free speech to us would mean that a teacher has a choice about whether to support the union's political agenda -- and the union has done whatever it can in the past decade to make that teachers don't have a right to choose."

Richards says the WEA should not be using government resources to force its own political speech on taxpayers and teachers, but that her group is encouraged by the tough, probing questions the State Supreme Court has been asking the WEA so far.

A ruling in the case is not expected for several months.

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