Democrats are having some fun with the $1 million dollar donation by News Corp, the parent company of Fox, to the Republican Governor’s Association, the 527 which helps elect Republicans across the country. But Lindsay Beyerstein has a great catch from the rest of the public fundraising data released by the RGA: it turns out that SEIU, the nation’s largest labor union, also gave $100,000 to them.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) donated $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association (RGA) in June, according to public records. The union has given nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the RGA in the 2010 election cycle.

…for all its progressive rhetoric, SEIU appears to be quietly hedging its bets for the midterm elections. Working In These Times found that SEIU dramatically increased its giving to the RGA in the 2010 election cycle over the 2008 cycle.

SEIU gave the RGA $450 in 2007 and $0 in 2008. In 2009, the union gave $100,450 to the RGA, and another $100,000 in 2010 so far. The surge from less than $500 in the 2008 election cycle to $200,450 in the 2010 election cycle is a striking shift.

This largesse to Republicans has not extended to individual candidates: 100% of SEIU political giving in the 2010 cycle has gone to Democrats, and historically Democrats take in about 94% of all contributions. And the unions’ DGA donation of $1.1 million dollars dwarfs the RGA donation.

Still “hedging bets” sounds about right for this. SEIU reps a lot of employees in state governments, and they know that if some of the GOP governors win, they’ll have to deal with their Administrations in labor negotiations. The problem arises when SEIU’s RGA money gets used to attack SEIU-endorsed candidates.

For what it’s worth, here’s SEIU spokesperson Teddy Davis’ response:

“SEIU has made a number of contributions to the RGA over the years,” said Davis. “While we recognize that the Republican leadership in Congress has declared war on working families with its ‘leave no corporation behind’ policies, we continue to believe that it’s important to have an open dialogue with governors about the crisis workers are facing at the state and national level.”

I’m awaiting an additional response.

UPDATE: Here are some numbers, some of them already in my post, on SEIU’s 2010 campaign spending, provided by spokesman Tim Tagaris:

$3m to California Working Families 2010
$1m to Working Californians
$4.25m into a program to mobilize Latino voters for Jerry Brown
Every SEIU local in California has double maxed out Jerry Brown (totaling over $250,000)
SEIU has also given $1.1m to the DGA this cycle.

All told, according to Tagaris SEIU and their affiliated state councils will spend between $20-$30 million dollars to elect Democratic governors this cycle. Just to put the $100,000 donation in proper context.

UPDATE II: Tagaris disputes Lindsay Beyerstein’s description of this as new spending, saying that the SEIU has given between $50-$100K to the RGA every year since 2004. Again, this is a small fraction of their overall election spending. I don’t know why this didn’t come up in public RGA disclosure forms.