Responding to Randi? A leader who doesn’t stand with the requirements of the law and the demands of justice has no claim on the title.

Mike, Randi Weingarten and I got into a mild Twitter exchange this morning over SB2404, one of two pension killers being considered by the Illinois General Assembly.

SB2404 is the bill that was bargained between Senate President John Cullerton and the We Are One coalition, of which Weingarten’s IFT is a member. Randi endorses Sb2404.

The other bill belongs to House Speaker Mike Madigan.

Both break with the constitutional protection clause of the Illinois Constitution which forbids the General Assembly from diminishing or impairing public service worker pensions.

First of all, I doubt Randi wrote the response personally. Somebody in her office probably was given the job.

The other thing is that what jumps out at you from reading Randi’s Twitter posts is that she hasn’t the foggiest idea of what SB2404 says or does.

First she said retiree’s aren’t covered by the bill.

We are.

She says it solves the funding issue going forward.

It doesn’t.

She said we share the pain.

We don’t.

It’s all on current and future retirees.

In the response below she’s says that in the process of solving the problem, there has to be give and take.

In SB2404 nobody gives but pension system members.

She pulls out that tired old sitting at the table stuff.  “In every negotiation, no one gets everything they want—but what sets this agreement apart from the blame game targeting public employees that we see in other states is that this was forged with workers and their unions, not done to them.”

Trust me, Randi. This got done to us.

The irony in her claim is that their very sitting at the table is what gives the state the possible argument that this is a contract modification and therefore constitutional.

The ultimate curse of sitting at the table.

She claims SB2404 will bring long-term stabilization to the pensions systems.

Nobody believes that.

Ralph Martire of the non-partisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability has shown that no stability can be achieved for the pension systems until we change the way the state raises revenue.

It is a revenue problem.

Not a pension problem.

That this must be explained to the President of the American Federation of Teachers is terrible.

Even our own Illinois state leaders who caved on this bill don’t claim this is a pension problem. They would tell her it is a revenue problem.

“Of paramount importance for current and future retirees should be the preservation of the defined benefit plan and the long-term stabilization of the pension fund. These issues are met in SB 2404.”

No. These issues are not met.

There is nothing long-term about it.

If they get this they will come back for more. And more. And more.

A leader who doesn’t know this has no claim on the title.

A leader who doesn’t stand with the requirements of the law and the demands of justice has no claim on the title.