Midterms 2014: Election Puts Extra Pension Funds in Control Of Wall Street Financial Services

No recount will be needed to declare one unambiguous winner in Tuesday's gubernatorial elections: the financial services industry. From Illinois to Massachusetts, voters effectively placed more than $100 billion worth of public pension investments under the control of executives-turned-politicians whose firms profit by managing state pension money.

The elections played out as states and cities across the country debate the merits of shifting public pension money -- the retirement savings for police, firefighters, teachers and other public employees -- from plain vanilla investments such as index funds into higher-risk alternatives like hedge funds and private equity funds.

Critics have argued that this course has often failed to boost returns enough to compensate for taxpayer-financed fees paid to the financial services companies that manage the money. Wall Street firms and executives have poured campaign contributions into states that have embraced the strategy, eager for expanded opportunities. Tuesday's results affirmed that this money was well spent: More public pension money will now likely be entrusted to the financial services industry.

In Illinois, Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn was defeated by Republican challenger Bruce Rauner, who made his fortune as one of the namesakes of Golder, Thoma, Cressey & Rauner (GTCR) - a financial firm that manages more than $40 million of the state's $50 billion pension system. Rauner -- who retains an ownership stake in at least 15 separate GTCR entities, according to his financial disclosure forms-- will now be fully in charge of the pension system.

In Rhode Island, venture capitalist Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, defeated Republican Allan Fung. Raimondo retains an ownership stake in a firm that manages funds from Rhode Island’s $7 billion pension system. Raimondo’s campaign received hundreds of thousands of dollars from financial industry donors. She was also aided by six-figure PAC donations from former Enron trader John Arnold, who has waged a national campaign to slash workers’ pensions. Fung slammed Raimondo as a tool of Wall Street, but she eked out a victory after a libertarian-leaning third party candidate, Robert Healy, unexpectedly siphoned votes away from Fung.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, handily defeated his Republican opponent, Rob Astorino, after raising millions of dollars from the finance industry. The New York legislature is set to send Cuomo a bill that would permit the New York state and city pension funds to move an additional $7 billion into hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate and other high-fee “alternative” investments. Assuming the standard 1 to 2 percent management fees applies, that could generate between $70 million and $150 million a year in fresh fees for Wall Street firms.

Cuomo has not taken a public position on the bill, but his party in the legislature passed it by a wide margin, and he is widely expected to sign it into law.

In Massachusetts, Republican Charlie Baker appeared early Wednesday to have secured a narrow victory over Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. Baker was a board member of mutual funds managed by a financial firm that also manages funds from Massachusetts’ $53 billion pension system. Baker is also the subject of a New Jersey investigation over his $10,000 contribution to the New Jersey State Republican Party just months before New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s officials awarded his firm a state pension deal. Christie, whose Republican Governors Association spent heavily to support Baker’s campaign, blocked the release of documents related to that investigation until after the election.

In all, Republicans won 18 gubernatorial races thanks, in part, to the robust fundraising of Christie’s Republican Governors Association. Some of that organization’s top donors are the financial investment firms that manage public pension systems.

Former Securities and Exchange Commission attorney Edward Siedle said campaign cash from the financial industry has fundamentally shaped the debate over how to manage state pension systems.

“Why have all pension reform candidates concluded that workers’ retirement benefits must be harshly cut, but, on the other hand, fees to Wall Street be exponentially increased?” said Siedle, who has published a series of forensic reports critical of the shift into alternative investments. “Why has no candidate dared to propose public pensions dump the costliest, riskiest underperforming investment products ever devised by Wall Street—hedge and private equity funds—in favor of proven ultra-low cost index funds, as recommended by the nation’s leading investors, Warren Buffett and John Bogle?...The answer, of course, is that more money than ever is being spent by billionaires to support a public pension Wall Street feeding frenzy.”