Judge rules Illinois pension cutting law “unconstitutional and void in its entirety”

Last week, Sagamon County Judge John Belz ruled that the law approved last December which cuts state employee pensions for both active and retired workers in order to make up for decades of underfunding by the state is “unconstitutional and void in its entirety.” Belz further found that “protection against the diminishment or impairment of pension benefits is absolute and without exception.” You can read the complete ruling here.
The We Are One Illinois labor coalition, which includes the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and other labor groups, issued the following statement on the ruling:

Today’s ruling makes clear that the Illinois Constitution means what it says, and the pension clause is absolute. The court held today, as our unions have long argued, that the state cannot simply choose to violate the Constitution and diminish or impair retirement benefits if politicians find these commitments inconvenient to keep.
This is, of course, a victory for teachers and police, nurses and child protection workers and all other public servants, both active and retired, who have worked hard on behalf of Illinois and its residents in every community throughout the state. They earn modest pensions and always paid their share. Today they are more secure in the knowledge that their life savings can’t be taken away from them.
But it is just as much a victory for every Illinois resident who believes in the integrity of the Constitution, the document that guides our state government. And it is a victory for a basic principle of fairness, that public employees and retirees should not be blamed or punished for the failures of politicians, and that their dignity and security in retirement should not be jeopardized.

While this is a huge victory for the hundreds of thousands of teachers, police officers, nurses and other public servants who would have had their retirement security decimated by the law, the fight is not over yet. The Illinois Attorney General intends to appeal the ruling the the Illinois Supreme Court.