Katherine Clark wins Massachusetts special election

[alp227]

18. K&R + Boston Globe story

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/11/katherine-clark-posts-lopsided-victory-race-fill-markey-house-seat/Dfr5VPA2ePUex4JAZhmLTM/story.html

More background about Clark:

Born and raised in New Haven, Clark, 50, is a graduate of St. Lawrence University and of Cornell Law School. She worked for a large law firm in Chicago and in the office of the Colorado attorney general before moving to Massachusetts in 1995 to attend the Kennedy School of Government.

Since then, she has worked primarily as a public-sector lawyer, in the Massachusetts Office of Child Care Services and in the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley. She was elected to the Massachusetts House in 2008 and won a state Senate seat in 2010.

Perhaps her biggest legislative achievement is a 2011 law she cosponsored that made public employees work longer for fewer benefits in an effort to shrink an estimated $20 billion unfunded liability in the state pension system. Clark argued the cuts would ensure that the pension system remains solvent for future generations.

Whoa...can any Mass DUers explain this? Why did Deval Patrick sign such a law? Sounds like something Scott Walker would've championed.