Ted Kulongoski: As a lawmaker in the 1970s, Kulongoski wrote the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act, without which the unions would be lost. Yet as governor in 2003, Kulongoski recognized that public pension benefits were too expensive and passed legislation that significantly cut them back. He recently signed onto the group Nesbitt heads, PERS Solutions. "The rising cost of the PERS retirement program," Kulongoski says, "means that all Oregonians, young and old alike, will pay a heavy price. There must be a bipartisan effort to find solutions to the PERS problem that are fair for taxpayers and public employees alike."