The tenth anniversary of the Illinois Supreme Court decision protecting our pensions and its meaning for today.
First of all, go Knicks.
This morning as I was having my morning coffee and french toast I received a text from my old teacher pal, Glen Brown.
He was reminding me that this is our version of Constitution Day.
On May 8, 2015 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the attempt by the Illinois legislature, it’s Democratic Speaker Mike Madigan and its Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, to rob the state’s public employees, including teachers, of their pensions was an illegal action.
While the public employee unions sought compromise, we retired pension warriors and the Illinois Retired Teachers Association stood firm that this was an illegal pension grab that could not stand.
On this day in 2015 the ISC issued its ruling that the language of our state Constitution was clear. Any member of a state pension system could not have their pension benefits reduced or impaired.
Glen reminded me on my favorite part of the decision:
As we have already explained, there simply is no police power to disregard the express provisions of the constitution. It could not be otherwise, for if police powers could be invoked to nullify express constitutional rights and protections whenever the legislature (or other branches of government) felt that economic or other exigencies warranted, it is not merely pension benefits of public employees that would be in jeopardy. No rights or property would be safe from the State. Today it is nullification of the right to retirement benefits. Tomorrow it could be renunciation of the duty to repay State obligations. Eventually, investment capital could be seized. Under the State’s reasoning, the only limit on the police power would be the scope of the emergency. The legislature could do whatever it felt it needed to do under the circumstances. And more than that, through its funding decisions, it could create the very emergency conditions used to justify its suspension of the rights conferred and protected by the constitution.
Glen is right. That is my favorite part.
You see, the Democratic Attorney General of Illinois claimed that because the pension system contained a debt, this represented a state emergency, even thought the debt had existed for decades.
The emergency allowed, the AG said, for the use of police powers to essentially seize the state’s pension systems and change the contractual benefits.
If we allow for that, said the judges, where will it end?
I would keep that language folded in my wallet to quote whenever I spoke about the fight to protect and defend our pension rights.
In light of Trump’s use of Executive Orders and emergency declarations to circumvent the United States Constitution, that language of eight Illinois Supreme Court justices, four Democrats and three Republicans, is prescient.
The rounding up and deporting of immigrants without benefit of habeas corpus is the inevitable result of the “emergency” rationale of the Illinois legislature.
If we allow that, the Constitution has no meaning.