California’s Auto-Retirement Plan Should Fall, Feds Tell Judge

The federal government opposes a new California retirement program for workers who don’t have access to employer-sponsored benefits, telling a federal judge in Sacramento that the program is preempted by federal law.

The California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program—called CalSavers—is invalid because it’s preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the federal government said in a Sept. 13 court filing. The law presents employers with the “false choice” of establishing an ERISA-covered retirement plan or maintaining an “equivalent plan” under California law, the government said.

CalSavers is a “heads-I-win-tails-you-lose” regulation that “disregards Congress’s careful determination that employers should not ...