There are some striking similarities between what the two sides are saying now about the session—and some striking differences. On balance, what happened then tells a lot about how a possible understanding of sorts instead became an expensive and nasty all-out feud that has dominated Illinois politics for years. This meeting set the tone.
News of the gathering first emerged when, a few days after Griffin recently announced that he and Citadel’s HQ were decamping for Miami, I asked Pritzker why he or his aides hadn’t reached out to Griffin to see if there was a way to avoid an economically damaging move, one that Griffin had been publicly hinting at for many months.
“That’s not true at all,” Pritzker said. In fact, “I actually met with him when I became governor” and asked what would make Citadel happier. But Griffin’s wishlist included unacceptable items, such as amending the Illinois Constitution to slash pension payments, Pritzker said.
Pritzker was available for just 10 minutes the day of the interview, so I couldn’t immediately pursue the issue. But here’s what I’ve since found out, with both sides giving their side so long as no one is quoted by name.
Griffin had been a big financial supporter of the man Pritzker ousted as governor, Republican Bruce Rauner. But while Rauner pretty much disappeared after the election, Griffin invited Pritzker to breakfast at a downtown hotel.
The meeting was “cordial,” Team Pritzker says. A similar sentiment comes from the Griffin folks.
In the Pritzker account, Griffin talked mostly about the necessity of cutting the state’s spiraling pension costs by using Pritzker’s political clout to push for an amendment to the Illinois Constitution allowing a cut. There also may have been discussion about moving new state workers to a defined-contribution 401(k)-style retirement plan.
Pritzker said no, on the basis that pensions are a promise that should be maintained and that dumping the Constitution’s pension clause would be rejected by the courts.
The Griffin version of events is somewhat different—and contains one big additional detail.
Griffin told Pritzker he had a rare opportunity to run the state not from the political left but the center, dealing with unaffordable pension costs, such as a 3% compound annual cost-of-living increase for retirees, while stabilizing state finances with additional revenues, the Griffin account goes.
“If you do these things, I certainly won’t get in your way and in fact will support you,” Griffin told Pritzker in so many words. In other words, Griffin urged Pritzker to make pension changes that could result in the governor getting some political cover from his rightward flank for a companion tax hike.
Team Pritzker says that wasn’t the case, that there was no quid pro quo offer. Pritzker wouldn’t even consider engaging in “a backroom deal with wealthy people who want the laws to benefit them at the expense of working families,” says a spokeswoman.
Griffin’s camp, meanwhile, notes that he only supported opening the Illinois Constitution to mandate a new pension plan for newly hired workers. Duly noted but, that said, once the pension clause was removed, there was no telling what other changes might have been made.
Decipher the truth there as you choose. Only three people were in the room: Pritzker, Griffin and a Griffin aide. But consider what’s happened since then.
No progress has been made on a constitutional amendment, even though respected outside groups like the Civic Federation say putting the matter to a vote is worth a try. Instead, Pritzker has pushed only small-ball pension changes, such as combining investments by small police and fire retirement accounts in the suburbs and downstate to cut administrative costs.
As a result, with an exception during last year’s stock market rally that likely will be a one-time event, the state’s unfunded pension liability has climbed, and at last check was a whopping $130 billion. Team Pritzker says the hole is beginning to close itself, as older retirees die off and are replaced by newer workers who, since the beginning of 2011, get a stingier pension package. But pension costs still make up roughly a quarter of the state’s operating fund, diverting money from schools, public safety and other needs such as property tax relief.
One other thing worth noting: The two billionaires have, since those early days of attempted comity, turned blood enemies, with Griffin campaign cash torpedoing Pritzker’s prized graduated income tax plan in the 2020 referendum, and Griffin dropping $50 million in a failed effort to make Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin the GOP nominee against Pritzker this fall. And though he denies it, Pritzker clearly is beginning to eye the White House, an effort in which having the backing of labor unions and union pensioners would be quite helpful.
Much of what’s happened in the past three years could have been avoided had that breakfast meeting gone better. Perhaps they could try lunch next time—if there’s a next time. No coffee, boys. Just calming tea.
