Springfield
— Opposition to a proposed pension-related constitutional amendment that will
go before Illinois voters November 6th is creating strange bedfellows — from
public employee unions to good-government groups that agree the question is not
worthy of a change to the state’s constitution and does nothing to address the
pension crisis.
Groups
opposed to the amendment are numerous and come from all walks of life. It’s no
surprise that public-employee unions from Chicago to Cairo are
opposed to the amendment, which requires a three-fifths majority vote before
any public body can approve a pension benefit increase.
…Groups,
such as the Center for Tax and Budget
Accountability and the Illinois Policy Institute, also are against it. So are Protestants for the Common Good,
the state’s League of Women Voters
and the Illinois
Green Party. The
groups usually don’t see eye-to-eye on how to achieve pension reform. But Constitutional
Amendment 49 has turned adversaries into allies, each with an eye on a
common goal – defeating the amendment.
“I wish I could say it’s because of shared
principles,” Diane Cohen of the
Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center said of the unexpected alliances. “We certainly just
view this as fake reform. It does nothing to address the pension crisis in the
state. But worse than that, it pulls the wool over the voters’ eyes to try to
pretend that the legislators are actually doing something in the face of this
crisis.”
Illinois
has a pension-funding shortfall of at least $85 billion. New reporting
requirements by investment groups put the liability in the neighborhood of $200
billion.
In
April the Illinois
House unanimously approved a measure put forth by Speaker Michael Madigan, a Democrat,
that would ask voters if approval of public-pension boosts in Illinois should
require a supermajority vote of three-fifths (60 percent) instead of a simple
majority vote. Madigan called it “tough medicine” for a state deep in debt. The
Illinois
Senate also approved the measure, with only two lawmakers there voting
against it. Since
then, critics have called the proposal “catastrophic,” “do-nothing,”
“misguided,” “incomprehensible” and “diabolical and feckless.”
“The
only people we’ve seen pushing this so far are the politicians themselves,”
said Anders Lindall, spokesman
for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which
represents thousands of state workers. “It really validates our view that this
is a politician-protection amendment. This is not a pension amendment. It
should be defeated.”
Groups
that support the amendment are difficult to find. Some lawmakers spoke in favor
of it during the spring legislative session. Rep. Dwight Kay,
R-Edwardsville, said the
amendment made good business sense.
“This
is a big decision that impacts the state of Illinois,” Kay said. “I support
this because this is a good business decision. This is the way the state of
Illinois should run.”
But
others have found numerous reasons to object. For
example, the language is too long and complicated for average voters to
understand, some say. The proposed Illinois constitutional amendment is more
than 700 words — longer than the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill
of Rights. Meanwhile, the diluted explanation of the proposed amendment that
voters will find on the November 6th ballot is just more than 200
words long.
John Bambenek, a Republican candidate for state senate
in the 52nd District, last week joined a lawsuit filed in Champaign County against the Illinois
State Board of Elections seeking to invalidate the ballot question, saying it’s
deceptive and inaccurate.
“I
get that Madigan and his Chicago friends want to stick it to us, but could they
do us the courtesy of doing it in a way we can understand,” Bambenek said.
“This ballot question and the amendment itself are incomprehensible gibberish.”
The Illinois League of Women Voters
opposes the amendment, saying the
three-fifths majority vote requirement removes control from a majority and
gives it to a minority. The organization also says the requirement does not
belong in the state constitution.
“The
Illinois Constitution is not the place for a provision that is this specific to
a single issue and to one remedy for a larger problem,” the organization writes
on its website. “If the legislature determines that this needs to be done, a
statute which can be modified more easily is the appropriate course to take.”
The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability
opposes the amendment, saying it’s a misguided attempt to address the state’s
pension problems but, most important, does nothing to reduce Illinois’
multi-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability. Amanda Kass, a pension expert with the center,
said it’s also impossible to know the full implications of the amendment until
after it’s in place.
“There’s
no reason this constitutional amendment can’t be part of state statute,” she
said, urging voters to read the various analyses of the proposal that can be
found online, including
one she wrote for the center. “But also ask themselves what’s the
fundamental purpose of a constitutional amendment – What’s the purpose of the
constitution, and is it appropriate to have a provision in the constitution
about pension benefit increases?” she asks.
Ann Lousin, a law professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago and an expert on the Illinois constitution, described
the amendment as “catastrophic,” noting that it is “very long and includes a
number of new concepts and terms which have not been interpreted by anyone.”
She
also noted that it probably would lead to an onslaught of lawsuits and that it
would require a new level of bureaucracy “to monitor, referee and record
countless votes, meetings and issues” for 7,000 governmental entities across
the state. “…
(T)his proposed constitutional amendment does nothing for the state’s
pension-funding problem,” she wrote. “However, it creates many new problems
and, if approved, would, in my opinion, be a catastrophe for Illinois.”
Cohen
of the Liberty Justice Center said the amendment presents a conundrum for voters. “If
you support the amendment, you’re kind of furthering this fallacy that it would
actually mean something. But opposing it sends the signal to local
decision-makers who already are spending beyond what the taxpayers can afford
to just spend more,” she said. “Really,
the bottom line is it’s not worthy of the constitution, and we need to stand up
and say this is fake reform and we simply can’t support it.”
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