Will Illinois political opportunists attempt another theft?

 

 

 

 

Go ahead and victimize the public employees through legislative incompetence, irresponsibility and misappropriation, Mr. Madigan and Mr. Cullerton. Strong-arm members of the House and Senate for additional votes. Ignore your oath of office yet again and challenge the State and U.S. Constitutions; transfer the constricting pension debts that both of you are responsible for, via your previous legislative duplicities. Continue your uncontested corrupt tradition of Illinois politics. Taken together, your reigns of influence since 1971 and 1979 (respectively) are perhaps unrivalled in this country.

“The Governor and I are now going to try to pass the original Senate Bill1. We`re hoping the Republicans will now support it. That would be a big help in passing the bill,’ Cullerton said. The two earlier competing versions of the bill would be combined into one new bill.

“We would have a bill similar to the one the speaker has passed in the House and that would be a version of the bill that we pass out of the Senate and try to put that in the same bill,’ Cullerton explained.  ‘We will see if we can pass that out of the Senate and probably delay the effective [date] that would require 30-votes.  We will make that attempt.’

“Both bills should be passed,’ Speaker Madigan said…”  (Quinn, lawmakers make small steps toward pension reform).

It is expected that that political opportunists who have no legal or moral concerns (besides their own) will break contracts.

“One of the key unions in the We Are One Illinois bloc, AFSCME Council 31, said it would not favor the idea of pairing the two plans together so that if Madigan’s approach failed a court challenge, the Senate, union-negotiated plan would be the backup.

“There is a plan that has been developed with our union and others, and it has passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support. That’s [Senate Bill] 2404. It’s not easy for us to agree to the compromise embodied in that bill,’ AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall told the Chicago Sun-Times.

“Any changes to it will not be in keeping with that compromise. That bill should be considered and passed by the House with no changes,’ Lindall said…”  (State Dems agree to work on pension reform, but ready to point fingers if it fails). What can one expect when dealing with liars and thieves? Click here.

The legality of a two-part bill:  Click here.

“[Any] attempt to denigrate the validity of decades of judicial precedents about the binding nature of legislation establishing pension commitments to government employees and to motivate state courts to overturn long-settled premises about these commitments would impose its own, unjustifiable costs. The states and their instrumentalities have promised pension benefits to their employees; those employees have relied on those long-standing promises; and as a result the citizens of the states have benefited from the services provided by those employees.

“There is no sound public policy reason to conclude that promises – based on the reasonable expectations of the contracting parties – should not be fully protected by the laws prohibiting or limiting the impairment of contracts”  (Greenfield, Douglas L., Lahne, Susan G. (2012). How Much Can States Change Existing Retirement Policy? In Defense of State Judicial Decisions Protecting Public Employees’ Pensions. National Council of State Legislatures Legislative Summit) ("The Illinois Constitution [should] impede pension reform").
 

If you haven’t read why any pension reform is illegal and morally wrong, Click here.