A parade of prominent DFL elected officials — several of them running or considering a 2018 run for governor — rallied mostly union supporters at a Capitol rally Tuesday to preserve threatened pension benefits.
"This fight is about who do you really stand with when the chips are down," said U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, the Mankato DFLer who recently announced a run for governor.
The rally coincided with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., introducing a bill in Congress to shore up pensions that workers negotiated but were underfunded and now face insolvency.
The Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, which in some recent years has run a deficit of more than $2 billion, could go bankrupt in 2024 — the same year the federal program that props up troubled pensions will also run out of money.
Without congressional action, the failure of Central States and the federal program — the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation — could leave pensioners collecting pennies on the dollars they were promised.
About 14,000 Minnesota Teamsters could lose all or part of their pensions.
In 2014, the Republican-led Congress passed a bill — whose co-author was retired Minnesota U.S. Rep. John Kline — that allowed trustees of distressed plans more flexibility to cut benefits to extend solvency. It was signed by then-President Barack Obama. But the U.S. Treasury Department, facing stiff pressure from Congress and the public, did not approve benefit cuts.
Walz was joined by U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, who is mulling whether to run for re-election in his Eighth Congressional District or run for governor. Three other possible DFL gubernatorial candidates also spoke: state Reps. Erin Murphy and Paul Thissen, and Attorney General Lori Swanson. U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison also spoke.
