Cahill yielded on pension issue in '04

Cahill said he received a visit from Representative John Rogers, House Ways and Means chairman, who was sent by House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi to tell him to abandon his quest to eliminate termination pensions for lawmakers.

Termination pensions allow legislators and other elected officials to collect early, enhanced retirement benefits if they are voted out of office. The law has also been stretched by the state Retirement Board to allow lawmakers who step down voluntarily to get the special lifetime benefit, equivalent to one-third of their salary.

Rogers, joined by another lawmaker and Cahill ally, Representative Ronald Mariano, told Cahill that House members opposed the initiative, Cahill and Mariano said in interviews.

Sending Rogers, whose Ways and Mean Committee was in charge of setting the state budget, was a not-so-subtle warning of possible financial consequences. At the time, Cahill was seeking additional money for the operations and staff at the state Lottery.

In an interview, Mariano said lawmakers were upset by what they considered Cahill's bid to make political hay out of the pension issue.

"It was contentious," he said. "It was the tenor of the report that people didn't like."

Mariano, whose political ties to Cahill are rooted in their home city of Quincy, denied that he or Rogers conveyed any warnings to Cahill that his budget would face cutbacks if he did not back off his threat to end their pension perk.

"We tried to get him to see the wisdom," Mariano said. "We just laid out our position, saying to him, you have a lot of big salaries over here and the legislators who are only making $50,000 or $60,000 a year need those benefits."

Rogers did not return a call seeking comment. DiMasi could not be reached for comment.

The message was clearly heard. Cahill quickly abandoned the plan to end lawmakers' use of termination pensions. He said yesterday that Rogers and Mariano convinced him of the political realities and that the Senate was also lined up against the changes. In fact, Cahill said, he and his staff could not find one lawmaker to file the bill on his behalf.

"I didn't think of it as intimidation in terms of the budget," Cahill said in an interview yesterday. "They [Rogers and Mariano] came down as friends to tell me it was not going anywhere and that it would tick off everyone in the building. I appreciated it."

The two lawmakers made their visit as Cahill was saying that pension reform was a priority for him. Cahill said at the time that he especially objected to an interpretation of the law by the State Retirement Board, which he oversees, that allowed legislators to win enhanced pensions after deciding not to run for re-election.

"It bothers me because termination means termination," Cahill told Commonwealth Magazine in 2004. "Quitting or leaving is not being terminated. . . . It is being twisted to help the higher-up people."

Cahill, who has privately told colleagues he plans to run for governor even if it means challenging Governor Deval Patrick for the Democratic nomination, criticized Patrick last week for "grandstanding" in his push to revoke such retirement benefits.

A legislative conference committee is expected to report out pension law changes within days or weeks that are aimed at dealing with a variety of special pension provisions, including enhanced benefits for lawmakers.

A key point of contention is the push by the Senate and Patrick to deny early, enhanced "termination" pensions for state employees who retire in future. The House argues that the Legislature is legally handcuffed because retirement benefits for current workers are contractual obligations that cannot be taken back.

In recent weeks, Globe articles have highlighted how the State Retirement Board granted pensions to 10 former legislators who voluntarily gave up their seats. Two of them got their pension in 2003 when Cahill, as treasurer, chaired the board. He said he was "just trying to follow the law," although he felt it was a stretch. The Cahill-led board later denied another such pension.

Patrick's legal counsel asked the Retirement Board yesterday to repeal the termination benefits it had given to lawmakers, including those approved on Cahill's watch.

"I am writing to respectfully request that the board promptly take action . . . to correct the errors and recoup any excessive amounts that have been paid to the former legislators," wrote Ben T. Clements, the governor's chief legal counsel. He urged action "given the relative clarity of the error and the erosion in public confidence that results from these and other pension abuses."

But Cahill said he will seek an opinion from Attorney General Martha Coakley on the legality of such action.

Sean Murphy of the Globe staff contributed to this report.