On Friday I wrote about the push by Republican Leader Tom Cross and Speaker Madigan, with the full support of the Commercial Club of Chicago, to violate the Illinois Constitution by passing a bill that would kill off public pensions in Illinois. Today, Madigan pulled the bill due to overwhelming and unprecedented push back:
Efforts to make government workers pay more toward their pensions were pushed off the Illinois Legislature’s spring agenda and onto its fall calendar Monday, handing public-employee unions an important, though potentially temporary, victory.
More reaction after the jump...
Here is the joint statement:
STATEMENT REGARDING PENSION REFORM
We are absolutely committed to reforming Illinois’ public pension system for current employees. It must be done to stabilize our systems and address long term financial issues for both the public employee pension systems and state government.
We believe passage of legislation addressing this issue is essential to the state’s well being.
It was made very clear during the May 26th hearing in the Personnel and Pensions Committee that both those who support pension reform and those who are opposed to Senate Bill 512 acknowledge we have a problem and something must be done.
Our goal is to enact reforms to our pension systems that provide a long term solution for both those who are members of the pension systems and those who fund them.
We will convene meetings over the summer to address the issues and concerns that have been raised and work toward a solution in this year’s Fall Veto Session. [Emphasis added]
-Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan
-Illinois House Republican Leader Tom Cross
-Tyrone Fahner, President, Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago
Interesting that publicly elected officials are now issuing joint press releases with partisan third parties. Fahner is a former IL Attorney General - back in 1980-83. This goes to show just how out in the open the backers of this bill are.
Part of the reason for pulling this bill is due to the unprecidented push back from legislators constitutients - many of whom are teachers or firefighter or in law enforcement - or know or related to one who is. According to We Are One Illinois' Facebook feed:
Capitol Fax, one of the most respected journals covering legislative events in Springfield, today reported that the coalition inspired more than 80,000 calls and 100,000 emails to be made to legislators in opposition to SB 512. That’s one reason Rich Miller, the respected and expert publisher of Capitol Fax, called this an “unprecedented” display of union solidarity against a single piece of legislation.
We Are One Illinois also released this statement today:
In recent weeks hundreds of thousands of Illinois citizens have spoken out in an unprecedented way to defend the modest pensions earned by public employees. Today in Springfield their voices have been heard and the pension assault turned back.
Retirement security is an essential part of the American Dream, and our coalition will go forward with renewed strength and solidarity to protect it. Illinois public employees receive an average pension of just $32,000 and most do not receive Social Security. Their retirement security depends on their pension.
House leaders have declared their intent to have meetings over the summer to address the state's unfunded pension system. We believe strongly that any funding solutions must be constitutional, must lead to the long-term stability of the retirement systems, and must go to the root of the problem: the failure of politicians over decades to make required contributions, even as public employees always faithfully paid their share.
To be certain, this fight isn't over. We did win a battle today however.