The Arizona Republic’s unconstitutional pension reforms finally repealed

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic has a long and sordid history of anti-unionism dating back to when conservative newspaper mogul Eugene C. Pulliam (grandfather of former Vice President Dan Quayle) was the publisher of the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette. The anti-unionism of the Arizona Republic.

The most recent example was a multi-part series of "investigative" reports in the Arizona Republic in the fall of 2010 that relied heavily on the biased research of the Goldwater Institute and quoted liberally from Byron Schlomach of the Goldwater Institute in its reporting. The Goldwater Institute and ALEC manufactured a public employee pension crisis, and the Arizona Republic carried water for them. Public employee pension reforms – a manufactured 'crisis':

The Tea-Publican Arizona Legislature then cited The Arizona Republic series as a reason for taking up public employee pension fund reforms during the past session. Regular readers know that this was part of a national legislative effort through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its affiliated members like the Goldwater Institute. Two reports on the tentacles of the Kochtopus and ALEC. The only question is whether The Arizona Republic was a complicit participant in this effort. We report, you decide.

Both our Tea-Publican legislators and editors of the Arizona Republic continued to press for pension reforms even in the face of well-reasoned legal arguments that it violated an express provision of the Arizona Constitution and contract law (impairment of contracts), and violated the fiduciary obligations of the pension fund manager (Arizona) to the fund beneficiaries. Our Tea-Publican legislature adopted the state pension reforms argued for by the Arizona Republic as proxy for the Goldwater Institute.

Public employee pensioners sued, and the Court struck down the Arizona Republic's pension reforms as unconstitutional. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Eileen Willett ruled the Arizona Republic's pension reforms were unconstitutional.

In anticipation of this court ruling, Tea-Publican lawmakers proposed repealing the pension reforms. Legislation would return to the previous funding system of a 50-50 split between the state and its workers. Legislature to repeal the Arizona Republic's unconstitutional pension reform legislation.

On Monday, Governor Jan Brewer signed legislation that finally repealed the Arizona Republic's unconstitutional pension reforms. Brewer signs bill to reverse public pension change:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill reversing a cost-cutting decision that made state and local government employees pay a bigger share of the costs of the state's main public retirement system.

Workers and their employers had each paid 50 percent of the Arizona State Retirement System's costs.

That was changed in 2011 so that employers paid only 47 percent while employees paid 53 percent.

But a judge ruled that the change violated a state constitutional protection for contracts.

The bill approved lawmakers last week and signed by Brewer Monday puts the cost shares for both the government employers and their employees back at 50 percent.

The bill also appropriates $40 million to state agencies and school districts to reimburse employees for the return to the old formula.

The individuals at the Arizona Republic who are responsible for manufacturing this public employee pension crisis and who propagandized on behalf of the unconstitutional legislation from the Goldwater Institute and ALEC are still employed there. No one has been held accountable for their actions. No one has been made to reimburse the taxpayers of this state for the cost of litigation over the plainly unconstitutional pension reforms. And that really ought to be a crime.