< The 2014 Pension 40: The Battle Is On

It’s been a busy year for Jordan Marks and the National Public Pension Coalition. The Washington-based not-for-profit was established in 2007 in response to Alaska’s decision to terminate its defined benefit pension plan for state workers. Funded by seven of the U.S.’s major unions, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and the Service Employees International Union, NPPC’s mission is to counter attacks on defined benefit pension plans. As the organization’s executive director, Marks, 35, has been front and center in efforts to coordinate and assist campaigns across the U.S. Surprisingly, Marks says he’s gratified by how his side fared in the 2014 midterm elections. “This was not a bad year for pensions,” he says. NPPC won almost all its legislative and ballot initiatives, and helped defeat a measure in Phoenix that would have switched new city employees into a 401(k) system. NPPC often faces deep-pocketed opponents, including the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (No. 2), which poured money into the Phoenix initiative. But Marks, who has served as a staffer to former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, Pennsylvania policy director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, believes that the power of NPPC’s message has not just helped the coalition prevail but has slowed the pace of attacks on traditional pensions. “People don’t like to see public employees get hurt,” he says.

 
The 2014 Pension 40

1	2	3	4	5
Bruce Rauner Illinois	John and Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation	Randi Weingarten American Federation of Teachers	Rahm Emanuel Chicago	David Boies Boies, Schiller & Flexner
6	7	8	9	10
Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans	Damon Silvers AFL-CIO	Laurence Fink BlackRock	Chris Christie New Jersey	Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp.
11	12	13	14	15
Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees’ Retirement System	John Kline Minnesota	J. Mark Iwry U.S. Treasury Department	Gina Raimondo Rhode Island	Phyllis Borzi U.S. Labor Department
16	17	18	19	20
Orrin Hatch Utah	Abigail Johnson Fidelity Investments	Ted Wheeler Oregon	Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley	James Hoffa International Brotherhood of Teamsters
21	22	23	24	25
Amy Kessler Prudential Financial	Alejandro García Padilla Puerto Rico	Christopher Klein U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Caifornia	Steven Rhodes Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan	Kevin de León California
26	27	28	29	30
David Draine Pew Charitable Trusts	Jordan Marks National Public Pension Coalition	Sam Liccardo California	Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business	Karen Ferguson and Karen Friedman Pension Rights Center
31	32	33	34	35
Timothy Blake Moody’s Investors Service	Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University	Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services	Daniel Loeb Third Point	Judy Mares Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Labor Department
36	37	38	39	40
Andrew Biggs American Enterprise Institute	Andy Stern Columbia University	Kenneth Mehlman KKR & Co.	Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research	A. Melissa Moye U.S. Treasury Department