Bob Lyons was elected to represent retirees on the TRS board of trustees.
The following comes from Bob this morning:
The word out of Springfield is that Madigan will call the House into session next Tuesday, December 3, meaning he thinks that he has enough Democrat votes to put on a pension reduction bill. But the other news this morning is that Bruce Rauner, GOP candidate for Governor of Illinois, is working to convince legislative Republicans to vote against the bill. Does that make the well-financed Rauner and the Republicans that join him our friends? Not exactly, because their stated problem with bill being crafted by the legislative leaders is that it does not go far enough to reduce benefits, may call for a slight reduction in contributions from teachers and other public workers, and worst of all would have an enforceable guarantee of full state funding, which they consider dangerous to their plans to reduce taxes.
Even though the GOP is a decided minority in both houses, the Democrats have always hoped that the Republicans could provide as many votes in favor of their eventual bill as the Dems could gain for their effort. If not enough Republican votes are there, that would leave Madigan with a serious problem where in order to pass the legislation that he wants he would need to risk putting his members in districts that are not considered safe on a bill that could cost them more votes in November than they could ever hope to gain! If you live in a district like my own area that has been traditionally Republican, but now has Democrat legislators, they are vulnerable to your efforts. It is rare to find a legislator, Republican or Democrat, that feels their losing an election is worth solving any problem the state of Illinois faces. You do not find very many elected officials that are willing to be a martyr for a cause that their party leader fancies. Madigan’s first goal has always been to keep his majority. This bill can still be stopped.
Your efforts to convince your legislator that our cause is not only fair, moral, and constitutional, but is also politically the best thing for them to do can make a difference.
Remember the pension you protect now is what you will live on for the rest of your life
Bob Lyons
Fred Klonsky 
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/25/detroit-bankruptcy-ruling-december-3/3717605/
Do you think Judge Rhodes’ ruling concerning Detroit’s Bankruptcy on December 3 at 9:00 a.m. may influence the pension reform agenda in Illinois? One of the issues is the retirees’ pensions.
This is what I have to say about the pension reform.
It is not fair for those who had worked in schools for all these years teaching the new generations how important education is for a better future, have to think that our own future is in jeopardy, because our government is trying to reduce our pension.
Our pension is the future for all us who work and worked in schools. It is what we have work for all those years.
We need that money to survive till the end of our lives; we have worked hard for it all these years.
We put a lot of effort educating the future generations, we have earned our pension. And I and my family will not vote for those government representatives who want to take away what we all teachers and educators have worked for.
The IEA has always voted for Democrats enough to keep them in a majority. Now they have a super majority. President Obama ran on his “Hope and Change”agenda and everyone elected him and a Democratic control in 2008. Well, I’ve had enough of the Democrats stabbing us in the back I think we give the other side a shot for about 10 years to see if the Republicans can get us out of this mess the Democrats have put us in.
Larry,
When it comes to pensions in Illinois there is only one party: The Anti-Pension Party. Republicans and Democrats joined hands for 60 years in the underfunding of our pensions.
Larry, you must be a plant from the other side or NUTS!
Is it true that there is no guaranteed issue of Part B Supplement after a year of MA-PD?
From an IRTA leader:
“We retired teachers have been told that if we go on a Medicare Advantage Plan offered by the state, try it for a year and then decide to go back to original Medicare that we would have no trouble. But what they do not tell us is that we may not be able to purchase a Medicare supplement that we want.
Since our retiree group health plan that pays after Medicare pays is being dropped, then we have a guaranteed issue right. But if we purchase a Medicare Advantage Plan, are on it for a year, and decide to go back to Medicare we no longer have a guaranteed issue right. (Check pages 21 through 24 of “Your Right to Buy a Medicare Policy” below.) I am trying to get this clarified by our state leaders in IRTA.
This is a problem for people who might develop a health issue while away from original Medicare and then try to go back to Medicare. This could result in not being accepted by the insurance company selling the Medicare Supplement. ”
See http://www.unitedmedicareadvisors.com/com/pdf/2013GuidetoChoosingaMedigapPolicy.pdf
Is there anyone in the legislature who would propose an amendment to the present proposed legislation also reducing the pensions of the legislators who “borrowed” or plundered the pension funds for their legislation at the same rate that the teacher pensions would be reduced?. Surely there are voting records recording who did that.
If they cry where’s the due process? We were wondering that too.
If such an amendment were actually proposed and state senators & representatives voted against the amendment, is it worth making the point that they are endorsing the actions of the embezzlers and the embezzlement done to the pension funds?
Every legislator when taking office takes an oath to support and protect the Constitution of the State of Illinois. If a legislator votes on a change to the protected pensions of public employees that results in the diminishing of those pensions, then the legislator has violated his or her oath of office. The Pension Clause does not have an “except” in its language. Any legislative leader who urges, begs, arm twists another legislator to vote in an unconstitutional manner is violating his or her own oath of office.
We are going to experience another classic example of Speaker Madigan’s “drive-by” legislation, which will happen with the speed of a drive-by shooting. The anti-pension language probably will be amended to a bill, possibly just a shell bill, that is already on third reading status. Hearings and committees can be bypassed because the third reading means the bill is ready for a vote. The leaders will dump the language of the amended bill onto the desks of rank-and-file (i.e., sheep) legislators and give them an hour or so to see how much the paper weighs and to read little more than the initial synopsis before voting on it. Then, with incredible speed, the bill will move to the other chamber for similar treatment. Nobody, especially the people who are most affected, will have the chance to read the entire bill before it is voted through and sent to the Governor, who will no doubt sign it in record time.
How fast can a challenge to the new law be filed in the court?
Might makes right.
Constitution and contracts are broken; how easy it is.
“And when the last law is down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, And if you cut them down, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? ” –Thomas More