Pension Should Keep Dornan Comfortable

Orange County Rep. Robert K. Dornan may be defeated, but he won’t be broke, thanks to the federal pension he will begin receiving as soon as he leaves office in January.

The 63-year-old Garden Grove Republican will have an estimated lifetime pension of $1.3 million or $2.1 million, depending on which congressional pension plan he was recently enrolled in, according to calculations by the National Taxpayers Union, which tracks congressional retirement funds.

Dornan’s retirement benefits are based on his 18 years of service in Congress plus his six years of active duty in the Air Force, said Pete Sepp, a vice president for the tax watchdog group. The congressman’s first-year payment will total $44,500 or $69,400, and be boosted by an annual 4% cost-of-living increase.

“The typical congressional benefits would be around $55,000, so depending upon which estimate you use, Dornan’s is slightly above average, or slightly below average,” Sepp said.

Two weeks ago, Dornan said that if he lost he would leave Congress with a $70,000 pension. His office declined to comment Monday.

Part of the confusion over Dornan’s retirement pay stems from the two-year break in his congressional service, 1983 to 1985, when another pension plan was introduced, Sepp said.

If Dornan was enrolled in the Civil Service Retirement System, which was in place when he was elected to Congress in 1976 from Los Angeles County, then his lifetime payment, based on actuarial tables, is estimated at $2.1 million.

After he was elected from Orange County in 1984, Sepp said Dornan could have switched to the Federal Employee Retirement System, which would pay out less, but also offered a supplemental savings plan similar to a 401(k) fund.

Other House members leaving after 18 years of service include Rep. William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.) with an estimated lifetime pension of $1.7 million and Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.), who is expected to draw $2.3 million in total retirement.

The extensive congressional pension plan and the automatic annual increases have caused the National Taxpayers Union and U. S. Term Limits to back various bills to reform the system, or to cap payments to former members of Congress, which now total $18 million to $20 million annually.

“We think that pensions and term limits are two sides of the same coin. They are symptoms of a career Congress,” said Jonathan Ferry, of U. S. Term Limits, a Washington-based advocacy group.

“There is a terrible disconnect between Congress and the citizens in how Congress has given to themselves and taken care of themselves, compared to the way they have not taken care of the country,” Ferry said.

There are so few strings attached to the pensions that only a conviction of treason can lead to denial of the pension payments after a member has left Congress, Sepp said.

Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) and former Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood are two examples of “retirees” receiving pensions, Ferry said.

“Not even a prison sentence takes away your pension,” Ferry said of Rostenkowski’s conviction for misuse of federal funds and property after he lost reelection two years ago. “Rostenkowski is pulling in $100,000 even while he’s in federal prison.”

Packwood, who resigned after sexual harassment charges were brought against him, “resigned in disgrace and he’s pulling in over $100,000 a year from his pension” and about to start a lobbying career on Capitol Hill, Ferry added.

Also contributing to this report was Times political writer Peter M. Warren.