Tomorrow morning, the California Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security will hold a hearing on Assembly Bill 221, which would prohibit California’s state pension plans from investing in companies with business operations in Iran.
California law already prohibits state pension plans from investing in companies with operations in Sudan. In the case of Sudan, a genocide is being carried out while being denied. In the case of Iran, the genocide is being openly threatened and actively planned. Passage of AB 221 is an important opportunity to act while action is still possible.
JCI sent the letter below by fax and email yesterday to the author of AB 221, with a copy to the Chair of the committee. You can fax and/or email a similar letter today, but your action will only be timely if you do it today. The hearing is tomorrow morning.
BY FAX: (916) 319-2177
Assemblymember.Anderson@assembly.ca.gov
Assemblyman Joel Anderson
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0077Re: A.B. 221 — IRANIAN DIVESTMENT — STRONG SUPPORT
Dear Assemblyman Anderson:
Jewish Current Issues strongly supports AB 221. This bill would prevent public funds from being invested in companies assisting a country dedicated to genocide, and would conform California law to the existing provisions relating to Sudan. Thank you for your efforts and those of your co-authors on this critical legislation.
Rick Richman
Jewish Current Issues
For more information on efforts to support this legislation, contact Doris Wise Montrose at Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Los Angeles. Benjamin Netanyahu said it best:
Obviously if we could get the ball rolling to get all these state pension funds to divest from Iraq — this in addition to what the U.S. Treasury is doing in curtailing banking activity with Iran — it puts formidable pressure on the regime. . . . I know such resolutions have been fielded in the case of Darfur against the Sudan.
I suggest a coalition of liberals and conservatives across the political band in the United States, divesting against genocide — that is, the one that is being perpetrated, the one that is being denied, and the one that is being planned. I can think of no better purpose, no better moral purpose, no better purpose period. This is what can differentiate our period from the 1930s, by actually doing something. So let’s do it.