The 2015 Pension 40: John Kline

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John Kline
U.S. Representative / Minnesota
Last year: 12

As chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and of its health, employment, labor and pensions subcommittee, Minnesotan John Kline, 68, is the GOP’s man on pensions in the House of Representatives. Last year he and Representative George Miller, a California Democrat Politico once described as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s “strong right arm,” teamed up to pass the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. That bipartisan effort to shore up failing union pension funds has proved controversial among organized labor: Some appreciate the need to save troubled funds, while others are resisting the inevitable benefit cuts from restructurings. “Business and labor leaders came together to support the legislation because they understood it was the only responsible option,” says Kline. “Those trying to undermine the law risk inflicting greater pain on millions of Americans.” Opponents of the bill are pushing a Senate proposal introduced in June by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders that would repeal the benefit suspension provision of Kline-Miller. In September, Kline, who was first elected to Congress in 2002, announced he would retire at the end of 2016. Some labor leaders hope Kline will tackle legislation that would offer a way for multiemployer plans to offer more flexible, or hybrid, pension solutions before he leaves. Kline, however, has said his legislative priority is the passage of a rewrite of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program, which mandated school testing and expired in 2007. Kline’s bill passed the GOP-controlled House in early December, leaving time for him to return to the pension wars. Kline says he has been talking with stakeholders and colleagues on the House Ways and Means Committee. The proposal, he says, “continues to be one of my leading priorities, and I am hopeful we can finish our work next year.“ Kline will lack one old ally: Miller, 70, retired from Congress last January.

The 2015 Pension 40

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1. Bruce Rauner Illinois 2. John & Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation 3. Chris Christie New Jersey 4. Randi Weingarten AmericanFederation of Teachers 5. Phyllis Borzi U.S. Department of Labor

6. Kevin de León California 7. Alejandro García Padilla Commonwealth ofPuerto Rico 8. Laurence Fink BlackRock 9. Rahm Emanuel Chicago 10. Sean McGarvey North AmericanBuilding Trades Unions

11. John Kline Minnesota 12. J. Mark Iwry U.S. TreasuryDepartment 13. Damon Silvers AFL-CIO 14. Jeffrey Immelt General Electric Co. 15. Joshua Gotbaum Brookings Institution

16. Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. 17. Mark Mullet Washington 18. Terry O’Sullivan Laborers’ International Union of North America 19. Raymond Dalio Bridgewater Associates 20. Ted Wheeler Oregon

21. Thomas Nyhan Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund 22. Karen Ferguson & Karen Friedman Pensions Rights Center 23. Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee forMultiemployer Plans 24. Robert O’Keef Motorola Solutions 25. Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley

26. Kenneth Feinberg The Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg 27. Orrin Hatch Utah 28. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University 29. Ian Lanoff Groom Law Group 30. Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business

31. Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees’ Retirement System 32. Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services 33. Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research 34. Denise Nappier Connecticut 35. W. Thomas Reeder Jr. Pension BenefitGuaranty Corp.

36. Hank Kim National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems 37. Paul Singer Elliott Management Corp. 38. Bailey Childers National PublicPension Coalition 39. Amy Kessler Prudential Financial 40. Judy Mares U.S. Labor Department