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Legislative Updates

Legislative Update No. 11, Session 79
By Tim Lee, Executive DirectorPrinter Friendly ||| Print as PDF

April 18, 2005

The Texas House of Representative passed HCR 63, a resolution calling on the Texas Congressional delegation to repeal the two Social Security provisions that target public educators and other public employees known as the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).

Representative Rick Noriega is sponsoring the legislation in the House and Senator Mario Gallegos is sponsoring SCR 5 as a companion resolution in the Senate.

Many retired educators are familiar with these two Social Security provisions and how they unfairly reduce many public educators’ Social Security benefits based on either their spouses’ work histories (GPO) or their own work history (WEP).

TRTA has been working the Texas Congressional Delegation for several years urging its support to repeal these two provisions. Many in Congress felt as though these two provisions would not be acted on until a much larger debate on the entire Social Security program occurred in Washington. That debate is now occurring and TRTA is working with the Texas Congressional Delegation to move on these two issues.

Mike Lehr, TRTA Executive Director Emeritus, was in Washington, D.C. this past week and visited every Texas Congressional and Senate office to discuss the importance of repealing these two Social Security provisions.

In addition, the TRTA is also coordinating efforts with the Coalition for Social Security Fairness, a group of other retired educator organizations from around the United States that are dedicated to seeing these two provisions repealed.

At the 2005 Annual TRTA Convention, Tim Lee, TRTA Executive Director, and Mike Lehr presented a special update session on TRTA’s efforts to repeal these two provisions. At that session, participants were asked if they thought TRTA members would support a special fund drive to raise money to help TRTA make a strong push in Washington on this issue. TRTA has interviewed one legislative consulting firm in Washington that would like to work on this issue; however, the fee for doing so was quite high. Other state retired teacher associations are asking their members if they, too, could support such a fund drive so that the costs would be distributed over many organizations as opposed to just one. TRTA is exploring the many pros and cons of this arrangement and members should check this site often to learn more about the TRTA Board of Directors decision to move forward with this idea or not.

For now, though, TRTA is working with the Texas Legislature and the Texas Congressional Delegation to move this issue forward. TRTA members are strongly encouraged to send “Thank you” letters to Representative Noriega and Senator Gallegos for their leadership on this issue. In addition, communications with the Texas Congressional Delegation is still vital to the success of TRTA’s efforts. If you have other questions or need any additional information, please contact TRTA at 1.800.880.1650.

If you have any additional questions, please contact TRTA at 800.880.1650.

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