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Looking back at 2006AEs top employee benefits newsmakers.

Article Excerpt
Rep. John Boehner

If there were just one person considered to be the father of the Pension Protection Act, most Washington pension observers agree that it would be Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio.

As chairman of the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee, the Ohio Republican launched the reform drive in 2003 with a series of hearings on pension plan underfunding and the threat it posed to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal pension insurance agency.

Rep. Boehner unveiled a reform bill last year to strengthen pension plan funding and spearheaded its passage in his committee and later in the House of Representatives, where his bill picked up significant bipartisan support.

While a loyal Republican, he was not blindly loyal. The funding rules in his bill, for example, were less stringent than those proposed by the Bush administration-a difference that was deliberate.

"Make the rules too harsh and you drive employers out,'' Rep. Boehner warned.

After his elevation to House majority leader this year, he continued to play a pivotal role in the reform drive. He sought and won membership on the conference committee assembled to craft a compromise from the House bill and a somewhat different measure approved by the Senate.

Rep. Boehner was very much in the thick of things, helping, among other issues, to iron out differences in the two bills concerning how cash balance plans should be protected from age discrimination suits.

His long crusade was successful when conferees agreed on a final bill in late July, with House and Senate approval coming soon after.

The final result, said Rep. Boehner, who in January becomes the House minority leader given Democrats' taking control of Congress, will protect the interests of taxpayers who could have been on the hook for a multibillion dollar bailout of the PBGC had Congress not acted.

Mayor Richard M. Daley

When Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley vetoed legislation mandating that major retailers provide a minimum level of wages and benefits,...