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The 2015 Pension 40: John Kline

No. 11 John Kline, U.S. Representative / Minnesota

By Tyler Davies

December 22, 2015

< The 2015 Pension 40: The Long Climb

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