Columnist: Bankruptcy Ruling Could Affect Pensions

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters asks, "Could bond insurers force Stockton" -- which filed for bankruptcy this summer -- "to reduce its retirees' pensions?" In August, a judge in the Stockton case "declared that federal bankruptcy law trumps" California's constitutional "ban on 'impairing the obligation of contracts,'" Walters notes. He concludes, "If it happens, long-held assumptions about the sanctity of California's public pensions will change."

• "Dan Walters: Bankruptcy Ruling Could Alter California Pension Law" (Walters, Sacramento Bee, 9/17).