February 20, 2007

Parsky as head of pension commission

The governor made an interesting choice, to say the least, to chair his new commission on public employee pensions and retirement benefits: Gerald Parsky, who is a venture capitalist, big-time fundraiser for President Bush and has been chairman of the UC Board of Regents. Parsky also helped kill Schwarzenegger's proposal in 2005 to end defined benefit pensions for new public employees and replace them with 401-k style individual plans that are common in the private sector. At the time, Parsky argued that the UC pension plan was fully funded and its benefits were crucial to attracting high quality faculty and other employees.

You can look at this two ways. One, by installing an opponent of his proposal as chairman, you can pretty much be assured that whatever plan emerges won't look anything like the one Schwarzenegger offered two years ago. You might even say this kills any chance for reform. I'm sure that's how it will be viewed by Parsky's many critics among conservative Republican activists, who resent the role he played in recent years trying to move the party to the center, or at least take its administrative tasks out of the hands of the activists.

On the other hand, Parsky now will be in a position where he is expected to come up with solutions to a pretty big problem. He can't just criticize. He needs to produce. And build consensus. Maybe a critic of the governor's plan who also might recognize the seriousness of the problem is a good choice to try to cross party and interest-group lines and find a way to deal with the issue.

Posted by dweintraub on February 20, 2007 5:16 PM