WARREN — Once more, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is going to bat for thousands of Delphi salaried retirees — including more than 5,000 in Ohio — who lost their pensions when the former auto parts supplier went bankrupt nearly 15 years ago.

The Democrat today plans to introduce the Susan Muffley Act in the Senate, where the legislation stalled last year under the weight of some Republican opposition after lawmakers in the House voted in its favor.

It’s the “same bill, same effort, same injustice we need to fix,” Brown said Tuesday during an interview with this newspaper.

The bill would require the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation — the insurer of last resort for the nation’s private retirement plans — to make up the difference between the partial retirement benefits PBGC already has paid retirees and what they originally were due in one lump sum. PBGC took over the pensions in 2009.

The retirees also would receive 6 percent interest on the retroactive pay to help ease the tax burden.

Then, moving forward, the retirees would receive their full pensions as if they never were disrupted.

It was approved in the House in July 2022 but later was blocked in the Senate. An attempt to include the legislation as part of a year-end spending bill also was unsuccessful.

“We got the bill through a Democratic house last Congress. We couldn’t pass it in the Senate because one senator blocked it. This year, we have (Republican) Sen. (Mike) Braun from Indiana, (Republican) Sen. (Todd) Young from Indiana,” Brown said.

Indiana has the third highest number of Delphi salaried retirees affected at 4,044, behind Ohio (5,181) and Michigan (5,859).

“You can see that when you look at the numbers of pensioners affected, (in) Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, (there are) almost 15,000 in those three states. In the rest of the country, there is not even that many combined. These three states, it’s really important, so we have both Republican senators from Indiana. We have good support out of Michigan. We have good support in the House,” Brown said.

The White House also has signaled its support for the bill, Brown said.

“I’m not giving up and so when I don’t give up, it means we keep fighting and we usually win in the end. Not always, but we are going to win on this,” Brown said. “It’s not going to be next week, but we’re going to keep fighting to make it happen.”

In addition to Brown, Braun and Young, U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Bob Casey, D-Pa., will introduce the legislation in the Senate.

The Muffley bill was introduced into the House earlier this year by U.S. Reps. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, and Dan Kildee, D-Flint, Mich. It was assigned to the committee on education and workforce. No hearings have taken place.

For the group of Delphi retirees, its battle over the pensions has been going on 14 years. It was struck a legal blow in January 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider their case.

Congressional action is the only option for restoring their pensions.

Delphi, formerly Packard Electric that at one time was part of General Motors’ parts division, filed for bankruptcy in October 2005 and emerged four years later. While Delphi was in bankruptcy protection in 2009, it relinquished responsibility for all its employee pensions to PBGC.

In its own government-planned bankruptcy in 2009, it was determined GM would fund fully union pensions for Delphi hourly employees. The salaried retirees weren’t as fortunate and have argued their pensions should have been covered as well.

Bruce Gump of Howland, chairman of the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association, said the legislation is more than restoring the earned benefits; it’s also about how the federal government chooses to govern citizens.

Gump said when asked why the salaried groups were singled out by the government’s auto team in 2009, they were told “the salaried workers had no leverage, and therefore there was no commercial necessity to do anything for those people.

“We all understand it when a private investor says that, but when it is the federal government, then everybody is vulnerable to such treatment,” Gump said.

“Brown has worked for years to correct this wrong, and others have too, especially congressman Turner. … It is our hope that this legislation will restore the fairness we were denied, and lead to a better future for us, our children and our grandchildren as well as all those who will come behind us.”

Where they live

Across the U.S., more than 20,000 Delphi salaried retirees remain affected, losing their pensions more than a decade ago, when the former auto parts supplier went bankrupt. They live in:

Michigan: 5,859

Ohio: 5,181

Indiana: 4,044

New York: 2,337

Florida: 801

Texas: 564

Alabama: 564

Wisconsin: 405

Mississippi: 387

Arizona: 198

N. Carolina: 156

Tennessee: 156

California: 153

S. Carolina: 147

Georgia: 141

Pennsylvania: 117

Other states: 672

SOURCE: U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office