Gov. Jerry Brown: California should be able to reduce public employees’ pension benefits

Leslie Eastman

Potentially a more meaningful legacy than the one that earned him the “Moonbeam” moniker.

 

"As Professor Jacobson recently noted, California Governor Jerry Brown occasionally has moments of sanity and clarity.

"In what can only be described as a Thanksgiving miracle, it is being reported that Brown is endeavoring to tackle the looming employee pension crisis by reforming the pension benefits for current government employees.

Gov. Jerry Brown got most of what he wanted when he carried a proposal to shore up the state’s underfunded public employee pension plans by trimming benefits for new workers.

Five years later, he’s in court making an expansive case that government agencies should be able to adjust pension benefits for current workers, too.

A new brief his office filed in a union-backed challenge to Brown’s 2012 pension reform law argues that faith in government hinges in part on responsible management of retirement plans for public workers.

“At stake was the public’s trust in the government’s prudent use of limited taxpayer funds,” the brief reads, referring to the period when he advocated for pension changes during the recession.

"Brown has been battling the public employee unions in California over the 2012 pension reform measures, and his office this month supplanted the attorney general in defending Brown’s pension reform law court. Legal Insurrection readers will recall that the state attorney general is Xavier Becerra, who has spent much of his time in office overseeing the states War Against President Trump.

"The numbers behind California’s current pension woes are staggering." . . .