< The 2015 Pension 40: The Long Climb

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Kevin de León
Senator and Senate President Pro Tempore / California
Last year: 25
The powerful head of the California State Senate, Kevin de León, is among a handful of lawmakers, labor leaders, academics and activists trying to develop new approaches to retirement security. “California is leading the way to provide a modicum of dignity and respect to the millions of workers who today have no access to any type of retirement security at their place of employment,” says de León, 49. In 2012, the former community organizer and first high-school graduate in his family proposed and helped pass the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Trust Act. The law — the first of its kind — was signed by Governor Jerry Brown and created a savings retirement trust for some 7 million low-wage private sector workers not receiving pension benefits in California. Similar efforts are now under way in other states, including Connecticut, Maryland and Oregon. The Secure Choice movement received a boost in November, when the Department of Labor issued guidance intended to help states develop these programs in line with ERISA (see Phyllis Borzi, No. 5).”This is the most far-reaching retirement security plan for private investors since Social Security,” says De León, who recently coauthored an oped on the topic with Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez. De León is also a committed environmentalist who won his 2014 bid for senate leadership with backing of allies that included hedge-fund-manager-turned-climate-change-activist Tom Steyer. In September the senate passed a de León-sponsored bill requiring the state’s two largest pension plans, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, to divest from coal companies.
The 2015 Pension 40
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![]() Minnesota ![]() U.S. TreasuryDepartment ![]() AFL-CIO ![]() General Electric Co. ![]() Brookings Institution |
![]() United Technologies Corp. ![]() Washington ![]() Laborers' International Union of North America ![]() Bridgewater Associates ![]() Oregon |
![]() Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund ![]() Pensions Rights Center ![]() National Coordinating Committee forMultiemployer Plans ![]() Motorola Solutions ![]() Morgan Stanley |
![]() The Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg ![]() Utah ![]() Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University ![]() Groom Law Group ![]() Stanford Graduate School of Business |
![]() California Public Employees' Retirement System ![]() Benchmark Financial Services ![]() New School for Social Research ![]() Connecticut ![]() Pension BenefitGuaranty Corp. |
![]() National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems ![]() Elliott Management Corp. ![]() National PublicPension Coalition ![]() Prudential Financial ![]() U.S. Labor Department |
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