A case study on how prominent elected officials do real damage to the public interest
For residents who desire to understand why Illinois’ pension system is in such terrible shape and among the worst funded in the nation, look no further than Senator Bob Martwick (10). The senator representing the Northwest Side of Chicago and surrounding suburbs, Martwick appeared on Fox32’s Paris on Politics alongside this writer to engage in a discussion over the state’s pension liabilities.
Strangely, Mr. Martwick claimed that the Tier 2 pension bill he authored in the Illinois Senate that will cost Chicago taxpayers $11 billion was intended to be a wake-up call to Chicago lawmakers. Martwick added the new law will compel Chicago to finally come to terms with and solve its pension crisis.
The state senator’s position on this concerning issue — portraying himself as coming to the aid of Chicago — is ridiculous but no surprise. As a member of the Illinois General Assembly (IGA), Martwick has been as responsible for the current state and Chicago pension crisis as any elected official in the state. Since becoming Chair of Illinois’ House and Senate Pension Committees, the state’s unfunded pension liability has soared from $94.5 billion in 2012 to over $142 billion. Consequently, Illinois is now home to the nation’s worst-funded pension system with debt twice that of California. Worse, Chicago’s pension debt now exceeds the combined debt of five of six states neighboring Illinois.
Martwick’s sponsorship and Governor JB Pritzker’s craven signature on the law affecting changes to the flawed Tier 2 system to the benefit of Chicago Police and Fire pensioners will add a staggering $11 billion to Chicago’s $36 billion pension debt. It will drop funding levels of both Police and Fire pensions from 25 percent to 18 percent. The Tier 2 pension problem in Illinois centered on concerns that benefits for public employees hired since 2011 will eventually fall below Social Security levels.
The revisions to Martwick’s Tier 2 would violate the federal "Safe Harbor" provisions requiring that essentially requires benefits at least equal to what Social Security provides potentially triggering significant financial repercussions for the state and its pension systems. The problem was a purely a theoretical one that might arise in the future as no Illinois Tier 2 state or local pensioner has ever been identified whose benefits are too low under federal law. There was certainly no need for immediate action.
As Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon points out, there were alternatives to what Martwick produced. Glennon stated a more affordable legislative option to cope with the pension predicament would have been found in state legislation authorizing a $75 million reserve fund to cover any additional benefits that might be required for certain pensioners if their benefits ever fell short of federal requirements. A common-sense measure Martwick ignored, the senator was too eager to shore up his support among police and fire for short-term political gain rather than consider the long-term ramifications of his actions.
Martwick’s response to my criticism has always been the recycling of CTU president and serial liar Stacy Davis Gates’ claim that I alone am responsible for the pension crisis. Davis Gates’ placing blame on me brushes aside the fact that as budget director in the 1990s I left the city pension systems with record funding levels. While I served as budget director under former Mayor Richard Daley, city laborers had sufficient assets to cover 133 percent of their liabilities. Municipal pensions were above 90 percent. Though traditionally Chicago Police and Fire pensions were underfunded, by the time I departed City Hall, both funds hovered around 70 percent funded and were rising.
During my tenure as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the Chicago Teachers Retirement System’s (CTRS) pension funding level rose from 80 percent funded to 104 percent. In agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union, the city secured a state statute requiring the district make the payments needed to keep the system fully funded on an “actuarial basis,” replacing the fixed contribution, which was woefully inadequate. Due to sound fiscal management, bond agencies awarded CPS 13 credit upgrades.
Following my departure from leading CPS, Chicago entered into a dark period that saw legislators irresponsibly voting to take pension holidays, expanding benefits, and leasing city assets such as the parking meters, I was working in New Orleans rebuilding schools after Hurricane Katrina and participating in relief and recovery in earthquake ravaged Haiti. Senator Martwick has been quite comfortable feeding his gullible audiences comforting fictions about his record to buff his public image and achieve reelection.
It may be regarded as certain that Bob Martwick is a legislator city employees should not trust with their pensions. Though he ostensibly represents the residents of the 10th District, as state senator, Martwick has used seats in both Houses of the IGA to function as a shill for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and CTU boss Stacy Davis Gates. Since he arrived in the Illinois House in 2013, Martwick has placed a higher premium on serving both Preckwinkle and Davis Gates than serving the interests of his constituents. Martwick’s survival has hinged on the development of an alliance with Preckwinkle and Davis Gates, the latter of which has sustained him in office by virtue of the massive amounts of cash the teacher’s union throws at Martwick’s reelection campaigns.
Last fall, the Illinois Policy Institute analyzed CTU campaign contributions to members of the General Assembly dating back to 2010. Unsurprisingly, Martwick was the top recipient of CTU’s dirty money, pocketing $147,846 in union cash. To put the value the CTU places in its relationship with Martwick, the 10th District senator rakes in more cash from the teacher’s union than the CTU throws at House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch. In return for the CTU’s generosity, a grateful Martwick dutifully advanced the CTU’s agenda to eliminate even public-school choice and to restore their right to strike for any reason.
For those who care to remember, in 2019, as Preckwinkle and former Mayor Lori Lightfoot squared off in the 2019 mayoral election, Martwick infamously ambushed Lightfoot at a press conference, criticizing Lightfoot for her opposition to a bill he sponsored that would have let the Preckwinkle-controlled Cook County Board of Commissioners have the power to appoint the Cook County Assessor.
Martwick as Democratic Party Co-Chair has been Preckwinkle’s confederate in targeting and unseating incumbents who dare defy her wishes. Take, for example, the campaign to remove Clerk of the Court Iris Martinez as the Democratic candidate in the 2024 election. Martinez’s offense? Seeking transparency around the SAFE-T Act by publicly releasing accurate data on pre-trial release of violent and habitual offenders and the huge number of pre-trial release court no-shows.
A man in thrall to Preckwinkle, as one of the chief sponsors of the Safe-T Act Martwick served as Preckwinkle’s political assassin at the August 2023 Cook County Democratic Committee's meeting on candidate endorsements for Cook County State’s Attorney. As Judge Eileen O’Neill Burke, then a candidate for State’s Attorney, took questions, Martwick harassed Burke on her campaign treasurer's history of casting ballots for Republicans in a third-rate attempt to taint the lifelong Democrat as a MAGA Republican.
Most recently, this time on behalf of the CTU, Martwick attacked candidates for Chicago’s elected school board seats not backed by the union. Although all were longtime Democrats and civic-minded residents, mostly women, who are trying to make children the priority over the interests of the CTU, Martwick lent his name to mailers and text messages fabricated by the CTU falsely linking them to Donald Trump, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and nameless out-of-state billionaires.
Aside from being a partisan hitman for Preckwinkle and the CTU, Martwick’s a walking conflict of interest. Like other prominent Democrat officeholders, he is a Cook County property tax appeals lawyer in the lucrative business of appealing the Assessor’s valuations of his clients. Martwick has opposed efforts to reform a property tax appeals system that is impossible for working families to navigate and requires many businesses to put law firms like Martwick’s on permanent retainer.
In addition to practicing tax law, Martwick is also an elected committeeman and Vice-Chair of the Cook County Democratic Party. He is Boss Preckwinkle’s rubber stamp on her various “sub-committees.” This includes the selection of Supreme Court, Appellate Court, Circuit Court, and Judicial Retention Committees, meaning that Martwick plays a significant role in the selection of judges who preside over cases in court that his corporate clients have interests.
The time has come for Senator Robert Martwick’s constituents — which include many city workers — to finally understand the real Robert Martwick. Residents of the 10th District and across the state need to fully grasp the damage he has done to the state and city pension systems, how he has financially profited from an increasingly burdensome and broken property tax system that he refuses to fix, and the damage he has done shilling for Democratic Party Boss Toni Preckwinkle and the Chicago Teachers Union.
