Behind smokescreen of 'Republicans did it!' IL House Speaker Madigan (D) renews pension attack

For the second year in a row, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, ostensibly a Chicago Democrat, is encouraging legislation to undermine the defined benefit pension plans of Illinois teachers, with the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) his particular target. This year, he is using the Illinois Republicans in the House of Representatives as his camouflage. Madigan, whose daughter is Illinois Attorney General, has long received support from the teacher unions, despite his longstanding hostility to public school teachers and, many say, public education.

Last year, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) engineered a raid on the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) that cost Chicago educators $1.2 billion and for the first time in the more than 100 year history of Chicago teacher pensions created two tiers among teachers for pension purposes...That 2010 law, Senate Bill 1946, brought to the Illinois House floor and voted on in a matter of hours, effectively gave the Chicago Board of Education a $1.2 billion dollar “pension holiday” which has had a massive negative impact on the solvency of the 53,000 member CTPF...
It came about after Illinois politicians accepted the claims of former Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman that CPS was facing a "deficit" of "up to one billion dollars. Both Cullerton and Madigan accepted Huberman claim, even though subsequent events showed that the "deficit" had been caused mainly by a manipulation of CPS budget numbers...

Now, adding insult to injury, it appears that House Speaker Michael Madigan and House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R – Oswego) are at it again, according to sources at the Chicago pension fund... Madigan and Cross intend to run a new bill that changes the benefits for current employees...

Observers who asked to remain anonymous told Substance that the evidence from Illinois is that Democrats and Republicans, led by Madigan, are engineering the destruction of the defined benefit pension plan for Chicago teachers, working off what looks like a long term script....

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