In the past 12 months, California State Senator Kevin de León has raised $1 million for two studies that will help bring the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program to life. One is a market analysis and feasibility study, the other a legal analysis of ERISA-related issues. Funds have been secured from donors that include AARP, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (No. 2) and the Service Employees International Union, and requests for proposal are going out to academics and consultants. The new public-private retirement program was designed with help from the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems to provide retirement income for 7 million private sector workers in California who lack access to workplace plans. It took shape in 2012, when the California senate passed de León’s Bill 1234 and Governor Jerry Brown signed it. “It is the biggest disrupter to the financial retirement security community,” says de León, 46, who was elected to the senate in 2010 from Los Angeles County. In March, de León convened a symposium at the UCLA Anderson School of Management at which some of the largest institutional investors — BlackRock, Aon Hewitt, Prudential Financial, TIAA-CREF and State Street Global Advisors — presented design options for Secure Choice. “It will be a game changer,” he says. “If you’re in the private sector, you’ll automatically be enrolled in this program.”
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 |