Big money ready to buy legislative votes on pensions. Unless we fight our pensions can vanish in a day.
Jim Broadway in his authoritative Illinois School Policy Update reports that big corporate money is ready to buy whatever votes are needed to make another pass at SB 512.
SB 512 would create a three-tier pension system as a prelude to doing away with state employee pensions altogether.
A massive campaign by unions and rank-and-file activists stopped SB 512 last session. Democratic Party Chair and House Speaker Mike Madigan, GOP House Leader Tom Cross and Civic Committee President Ty Fahner could not round up enough votes in the House to pass the bill. It never got to the Senate.
The Civic Committee and the Civic Federation, another corporate lobby group, have doubled down for the upcoming session. They have raised a ton of money to get House and Senate votes. They apparently have the backing of Governor Quinn.
The bill is now in the House Rules Committee but could be restored to third reading in the House at Madigan’s direction. Only 60 votes are needed to pass it. The Senate would have to concur with the House amendment, which would take 30 votes in that chamber. Technically, it could all happen quickly, in a single day.
Says Broadway:
The publication (Crain’s) speculated that the Civic Committee was inspired by the tactic employed a year ago by the “Stand for Children-Illinois PAC” in amassing so much money that legislators were afraid to vote against the education “reforms” – erosion of teachers’ rights to tenure and to strike – as ultimately enacted in Senate Bill 7.
The We Mean Business PAC is piling up receipts in $10,000 chunks. They do mean business.
With their victory on Senate Bill 7, the corporate money boys think they can do it again.
How will our leadership respond?
Free trial subscriptions to Broadway’s updates are available here.
They’ve got to have it, because its ours. I’m not sorely vexed about it, but I’m going to have to skip what looks to be an altogether interesting professional football game show on Sunday. Now, I know what your’re thinking, Fred, “Why should I let a drunken, miserly, and sadistic asshole like Mitch Daniels ruin my Sunday?” Sure, but that’s just how it is with some people, and I really don’t always enjoy football. We must all invest in their fears, and not what brings about normalicies of peace, prosperity, and the happiness that we all seek, and the shit heels shall never find. Not here, not now, and not ever. For the record, I’m picking New York, to win, but no bets are involved, its just predicative, and not really on speculative behavior.