Fight to Preserve Your Pension
More bad news for California law enforcement officers: Chuck Reed, the embattled former mayor of San Jose, has decided to take another crack at destroying the state’s pension program. This time out, he’s reviving a campaign—similar to the one he tried and failed at in San Jose—to slash retirement benefits for California teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, and other people working for the state.
Reed, who termed out as San Jose mayor at the end of 2014 after a bitter years-long battle with the San Jose POA and other city employee unions, has linked arms with former San Diego Councilman Carl DeMaio, a Republican, to place a state initiative on the 2016 ballot. DeMaio just lost a hotly contested race for the U.S. Congress after it became known that the FBI was investigating charges of sexual harrassment against him.
The measure would target CalPERS, California’s $300 billion public pension administrator, which oversees retirement funds for more than 3,000 government employees.
This is a time for serious coalition building. All the public sector unions should unite to stop this measure.