Making PERS more affordable.

"Coward!"  "Sell-out!" "Wall Street Lackey!" "Corporate!"

Circulating on Social Media

Democrats in Salem pass a contentious vote. 

Firefighters Union: "Now we will continue fighting these unfair, undeserved, and illegal cuts in court.”

Guest Post observation by Kevin Stine

Medford City Council Member Kevin Stine is a close observer of local, state, and national politics. He was re-elected to the non-partisan Medford City Council, and was a Democratic candidate for State Senate in 2018 and US Senate candidate in a primary challenge against Ron Wyden, running to Wyden's left and getting 78,000 votes.

Stine shares observations on the political fallout from a difficult vote for Democrats on Oregon SB 1049--a measure taking a small step toward reducing the $27 billion in unfunded pension liability of Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System. It is a complicated bill, linked to a corporate tax bill. Among other provisions it would require employees making more than $30,000 a year to pay a portion of their income toward the PERS liability, thus reducing the amount of money going into an employee's "side account" with the net result that the employee's eventual retirement benefit would be reduced by one to two percent.  Click: OPB news story

Measures that cut income or benefits draw virulent and organized opposition.

Boycott!! For example, locally some Democrats were urging other precinct committee members via mass e-mails to boycott a planned Party fundraiser because one of the planned Democratic speakers had voted for the bill. The Democrats stand for nothing, a writer said.

Facebook commentary.

Some posts on Oregon-based progressive groups on Facebook express similar outrage, and the issue falls neatly into the Bernie vs. Hillary, "progressive" vs. "neo-liberal" divide that roils the Democratic party past and still. Within the framework of leftist political discussion "neo-liberal" is a very dirty word.

The vote is being defined as a litmus test: good vs. bad; progressive vs. "neo-liberal," worthy of support vs worthy of being challenged in a primary.

Kevin Stine's Observations:

Kevin Stine

On Thursday, May 30^ththe Oregon House Democrats failed to pass SB 1049, bill that would have made changes to the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). In a shocker, the vote tally was 29 for, and 31 against. House Speaker Tina Kotek then had some work to do.

She put the House “at ease”, and after 30 minutes returned with the two vote changes she needed. House Representatives Mitch Greenlick and Andrea Salinas were “whipped”. A reporter from Oregon Public Broadcasting noted that Representative Salinas was crying after changing her vote.

A reading of legislators vote explanations give us the following reasons why a Democratic legislator, would vote to negatively impact public employees:

·      This was negotiated to get the votes needed for the Student Success Act, which is a modified corporate activities tax (MCAT), that raises $1B a year for education.

·      This was negotiated with business groups to stave off a ballot referral of the Student Success Act. It may end up getting referred anyway.

·      The continued growth of PERS costs is unsustainable and leads to decreasing services across every governmental agency in Oregon.

·      That it isn’t that bad, and there are potential ballot measures that are much worse.

·      That SB 1049 isn’t permanent, as once PERS in 90% funded, the soon-to-be law is essentially no longer in effect.

There are of course more reasons out there, and not every Democratic legislator that voted for it, believes all of the above. Regardless, it was a tough vote, as many have explained that voted for it.

Online progressives have had some choice words and created a widely-shared Certificate of Cowardice.

“Primary them all.”

“This is what a supermajority gets us?”
“So many corporate Dems!”

“It’s time to stop supporting these traitors.”
“It’s a betrayal.”

PERS has a long history of legislative changes, with many attempts to immediately reign in the cost, failing in the courts after reforms in 1995, 2003, and 2013. All of these generated outrage from labor groups, but I couldn’t identify any Democratic legislator that was primaried out due to their vote. Despite the concerns, I find it highly doubtful that any legislator pays a political price for the vote they took in 2019.

The greater interest may be for those seeking a different office. Greg Macpherson led the charge to reform PERS in 2003. In 2008 he ran for Oregon Attorney General and labor unions spent heavily in the Democratic primary for his opponent, John Kroger. He lost, and his other attempts to attain political office have been unsuccessful.

There is no lack of politically ambitious legislators that voted for SB 1049, including Speaker Tina Kotek, who is likely to run for Governor in 2022. She has an exhaustive list of progressive achievements leading the House Democrats, but stay tuned to whether she pays a political price for getting this bill passed.