Governor Reynolds has already helped strip collective bargaining rights, attacked workers’ compensation, and has voiced her support for making changes to IPERS multiple times. In fact, as a state senator, Governor Reynolds voted in favor of a failed amendment that would create the option of a “defined contribution plan” for new public employees – something Sinquefield has previously supported. Governor Reynolds has also called IPERS not “not sustainable” and supported a libertarian-think tank who supports a hybrid pension system to be brought in to study IPERS.
“Iowans deserve to know who our governor is working for and who she’s willing to throw overboard for some campaign cash,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price. “By aligning herself with Rex Sinquefield, Governor Reynolds is telling Iowa workers, especially teachers, that her campaign is more important than their families and livelihoods.”
Iowans may not be fully familiar with Rex Sinquefield, so here’s a sampling of his greatest hits, including an initiative to gut teachers’ pensions:
PENSION ATTACKS
Sinquefield’s Show-Me Institute says one his top policy priorities is gutting Missouri teachers’ pension plan, despite their plan – like IPERS – being well funded.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Column: Is Missouri’s Teacher Pension Next?
“Missouri resident Sinquefield, a wealthy Republican who is neither a politician nor an elected official, has a 15-policy agenda he would like to see passed by the Missouri Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Eric Greitens. One of those policies is to privatize or eliminate the Missouri Public School Retirement System. Sinquefield wants to see our teacher pension change from a defined benefit plan, with guaranteed benefits, to a defined contribution plan similar to a 401(k) account, essentially privatizing our pension. He claims that state-funded teacher pensions are typically underfunded, which is not true for the state of Missouri.”
The National Public Pension Coalition has also identified Sinquefield as a significant threat to public pensions. In a spooky release, they list Sinquefield as one of the “pension ghouls playing tricks on hard-working Americans”:
“Sinquefield has been a leading proponent of gutting public pensions there, despite the success of PSRS/PEERS at providing retirement security to working families. Rather than allowing Wall Street financial interests to drain the life out of Missouri’s pensions, legislators there should stand up for the working families who rely on their pensions in retirement.”
TEACHER TENURE AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Sinquefield’s attachment to reality is under question as well. In 2012, in yet another attempt to undermine teachers and the public schools that working families rely on, he started spreading the theory that the Klu Klux Klan started public schools to oppress African Americans.
Columbia Daily Tribune: “During a lecture at Lindenwood College, Sinquefield explained his opposition to teacher tenure this way”
“You know what. There was a column written and I hope I don’t offend anyone,” Sinquefield said. “There was published column by a man named Ralph Voss, who was a former judge in Missouri. He now owns and writes for a newspaper in Central Missouri called the Unterrified Democrat — what a name — and it’s in Osage County, Missouri.
“And he starts off, something like this, he said a long time ago, decades ago, the Ku Klux Klan got together and said how can we really hurt the African American children permanently? How can we ruin their lives? And what they designed was the public school system.”
SELF-INTEREST ABOVE ALL ELSE
Iowans interested in learning about just how self-serving Governor Reynolds’ new financial backer truly is, should read this column about the state he has already spent years trying to cripple for his own benefit. Now, he is clearly trying to spread these same policies to Iowa:
PR WATCH: Show Me the Money: Meet the Multimillionaire Squeezing Missouri’s Schools
“Though he was born in Missouri, he didn’t move back there until 2005, after being away nearly four decades.
Now he claims to know how to “fix” the state. To an astonishing degree, over the last few years, Missouri’s political landscape has been dominated by the wish list of just this one man.
Sinquefield is doing to Missouri what the Koch Brothers are doing to the entire country. For the Koch Brothers and Sinquefield, a lot of the action these days is not at the national but at the state level.
By examining what Sinquefield is up to in Missouri, you get a sobering glimpse of how the wealthiest conservatives are conducting a low-profile campaign to destroy civil society.”
“Now Sinquefield is trying to do away with the 6 percent state income tax. Doing so would enrich him personally, since the investment firm he co-founded still manages more than $200 billion in investments, some of which he may still own. Plus, if the business is ever sold, he stands to make a windfall.”