Madigan guts Cullerton’s pension bill (from Capitol Fax)

House Speaker Michael Madigan gutted Senate President John Cullerton’s pension reform bill today and replaced the language with an amendment which appears to contain Madigan’s own original bill. That bill, of course, died in the Senate last month.

From Rep. Elaine Nekritz’s spokesperson: A House Personnel and Pensions Committee hearing has been scheduled for next Tuesday, June 18, at 4:30 pm in Room 114 of the Capitol. On the agenda is House Amendment 1 to SB 2404, sponsored by Speaker Madigan… [possunt quia posse videntur:
they can because they seem to be able to].


from Capitol Fax

To reiterate: What is at stake right now is not a potential adjudication of conflicting claims that public employees will have against policymakers who want changes to retirees’ and public employees’ earned compensation and rights, but to respect the retirees’ and public employees’ contractual and constitutional promises because they are legitimate rights and moral concerns not only for public employees, but for every citizen in Illinois: for any unwarranted acts of cheating a person’s guaranteed rights and earned compensation will violate interests in morality and ethics and the basic principles of both the State and United States Constitutions that protect every one of us (link: Illinois Pension Reform Is Without Legal and Moral Justification).

We might become "We Are One" after all.