UTLA Is Accused of Seeking to Block Bill

Assemblyman Keith Richman accused the Los Angeles teachers union and Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg of working to block his legislation that would bar teacher unions from receiving payments for endorsing retirement investments.

Goldberg, chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee, and United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy disputed Richman’s claim.

Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) said the deadline to introduce bills had passed and that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) was refusing to grant waivers to accommodate late bills in order to pass a state budget on time.

Duffy said UTLA was unaware of Richman’s proposal.

“The first I’ve heard about this bill is your phone call,” he told a reporter Tuesday. Richman “did not give us the courtesy of sending this bill, or calling me saying, ‘Hey, Duff, I want to talk about this.’ We didn’t block it because we didn’t even know about it.”

Richman (R-Northridge) said his proposed bill was spurred by an April 25 story in The Times that disclosed how teacher unions throughout the country had made deals with financial services companies to endorse individual retirement investments, many of them laden with high fees and often paying low returns.

While UTLA gets no direct payments for endorsing retirement products, it counts on its approved vendors to advertise in union publications and to buy booths at annual conferences. Duffy recently posted a letter to members on the UTLA website, saying that union officials were now reviewing the endorsement deals because The Times story “shines a negative spotlight” on some of its vendors.

In addition to barring unions from endorsing investments in return for “any consideration,” Richman’s proposed legislation would require investment companies selling to teachers to fully disclose fees and expenses.

“The only reason this bill isn’t moving is because of the power of the teachers union and, specifically, because the UTLA doesn’t want this bill to move forward,” he said.

Richman said Nunez had the power to grant a waiver to the deadline for bill introduction. However, Nunez spokesman Steve Maviglio said the Assembly had not approved waivers for this type of bill in the last three sessions.

Goldberg, a former UTLA member whose nephew David Goldberg now serves as the union’s treasurer, said she was aware of complaints surrounding 403(b) investment plans sold to teachers, which are similar to 401(k) accounts. Goldberg said she was not sure she supported Richman’s legislation as a solution. She said her policy analysts were reviewing the proposal until they realized that it couldn’t move forward this session.

If blocked in the Assembly Education Committee, Richman said he would seek to “gut and amend” one of his bills in the Appropriations Committee to incorporate the legislation on union endorsements.