The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state pension law that would have rolled back government workers’ benefits to cover the pension system’s enormous $105 billion deficit.

Signed by then-Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in December 2013, the law ended automatic compounded annual cost-of-living increases for retirees, extended the retirement age for current state employees and capped the amount of workers’ salary used to calculate benefits.

The state Supreme Court struck down the law on the grounds that it violated the pension protection clause in the state constitution under which pension benefits cannot be “diminished or impaired.”

“Our economy is and has always been subject to fluctuations, sometimes very extreme fluctuations,” Republican Justice Lloyd Karmeier wrote on behalf of the court. “The law was clear that the promised benefits would therefore have to be paid and that the responsibility for providing the state’s share of the necessary funding fell squarely on the Legislature’s shoulders.”

First-year Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, had wanted to shift veteran public employees into a cheaper retirement benefit plan — something he was counting on to eliminate one-third of an estimated $6.6 billion budget deficit. The court’s decision appears to have closed that avenue.

Chicago Tribune, May 8 and 9