Former Oregon gov. Retread and his pals in the legislature ignored legal advice and rewrote the contract between the state and retirees to reduce a cost-of-living adjustment that they figured would save the state $5 billion in a hurry. Those wacky folks!
They lost.
The Oregon Supreme Court last week declared unconstitutional virtually all the state's effort to tame pension costs. It said the state could not reduce cost-of-living adjustments on retirement benefits already earned. That means the state can't touch the benefits of retirees or those of current employees up to the effective date of the state's 2013 pension legislation.
Ya know, this is one of those situations in which the Democratics of three decades ago wrote up these contracts in hopes of pleasing their constituents. And with nobody paying attention, nobody much minded. Who had internet access back then? But things change, and chickens come home to roost, and so on. They didn't write checks; they wrote I.O.Us and hoped the things would never come due.
They lost.
