CalPERS Continues its Nose-Thumbing of Divestment Laws… The State retirement giant is entrenched in its outright defiance of laws mandating divestment from companies doing business in Iran and Sudan (see my FR entry from February 2010).

Yet, CalPERS is spending a significant amount of money — $550,000 — to comply with the laws, while doing no such complying.

San Diego CityBeat‘s Dave Maass has covered this issue in detail in the past and digs up the latest in a January 5 story. Some excerpts:

CalPERS has a funny definition of “compliance.” … In fact, CalPERS’s board passed a policy in February 2009 stating that it would not divest from companies as the law demands, period. As CityBeat reported last year, CalPERS failed to disclose this decision to the state Legislature in its annual report.

Then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown demanded a complete accounting and an Assembly committee grilled CalPERS leaders twice over its failure to divest. CalPERS argued that writing “engagement” letters to the companies was sufficient.

But CalPERS still hasn’t divested, despite the $550,000 spent on “compliance.”

“If that’s really true, they’re incompetent,” says John Harrington, president of Harrington Investments, who has specialized in “socially responsible investing” for more than 30 years. “We’re talking about a very sophisticated retirement system. It’s ludicrous."

The members of the legislature and new AG Kamala Harris should read the entire CityBeat article, then tell us what they plan on doing to address the situation.  CalPERS clearly believes it is above the law:

Poor returns — CalPERS spent $550,000 dodging divestment laws
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From Blowing up Boxes to Filling them Up… The Schwarzenegger governorship will be remembered as a philosophical hodgepodge of missed opportunities, marked by both emboldened calls for reform and complete capitulation to the system.  Like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, we never knew what we would get with Arnold, right up until the final days.

Nothing could speak to this policy-making dichotomy more than the former Governor’s appointments to the very boards and commissions he once sought to eliminate.

The Union-Tribune‘s Matt Hall writes for today’s Watchdog:

Arnold Schwarzenegger stormed into the governor’s office in late 2003 intending to "blow up the boxes" of state government and soon targeted 88 boards and commissions for termination.

He left this month, having eliminated only a few, and one of his last acts involved naming a series of political allies to commission seats with six-figure salaries, including several board he wanted abolished.

Read all of Board reform didn’t pan out for Schwarzenegger
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Have a great week!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 16th, 2011 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.