{"id":1942423,"date":"2023-06-02T01:07:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T05:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/state-pension-funds-defy-anti-esg-laws-when-voting-their-shares-watchdog-charges\/"},"modified":"2023-06-02T01:10:05","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T05:10:05","slug":"state-pension-funds-defy-anti-esg-laws-when-voting-their-shares-watchdog-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/state-pension-funds-defy-anti-esg-laws-when-voting-their-shares-watchdog-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Watchdog accuses state pension funds of violating anti-ESG laws in voting shares."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fstate-pension-funds-defy-anti-esg-laws-when-voting-their-shares-watchdog-charges%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1942423&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Conservative States Struggle to Keep ESG Out of State Funds<\/h2>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0601\/88028f80-590f-4a86-ba42-726f123ca87b\/audio.mp3?length=5856813&#038;duration=488\"><\/div>\n<p>Conservative states are fighting to keep state funds out of the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) movement. However, they are finding that fund managers are not always following their lead. Despite recent laws in states like Florida and Ohio banning the use of municipal dollars for political causes, fund managers are continuing to vote the shares owned by state pensions to support the climate agenda, racial equity, and abortion rights. This is according to an investigation of voting records by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF).<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t like this term, but you essentially have a deep state within these pension programs that is not listening to elected leadership,\u201d AAF President Tom Jones told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Under the slogan of \u201cwhere ESG goes to die,\u201d Florida has been one of the most aggressive states working to remove politics from state investments. In August 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis passed a resolution that investment decisions regarding state funds \u201cmust be based only on pecuniary factors, [which] do not include the consideration of the furtherance of social, political, or ideological interests.\u201d On May 2, 2023, DeSantis signed into law a bill that barred state officials from using public money to promote ESG goals.<\/p>\n<h3>State Fund Managers Vote Against Conservative Guidance<\/h3>\n<p>Despite this, Florida\u2019s State Board of Administration (SBA), which manages the state\u2019s pensions, voted for a resolution at Boeing on April 18, requiring race and gender equity audits. The SBA voted for climate activism resolutions at Berkshire Hathaway on May 6 and at UPS on May 4. In Ohio, the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) voted for a resolution at AT&#038;T to block the company from donating to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/record-number-of-pro-life-bills-passed-in-2021\/\" title=\"Record Number of Pro-Life Bills Passed in 2021\">pro-life lawmakers<\/a>, voted for a resolution at Home Depot against donating to police foundations, voted for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-push-racial-equity-audits-to-cement-control-of-tech-companies\/\" title=\"Democrats Push \u2018Racial Equity Audits\u2019 To Cement Control of Tech Companies\">racial equity audits<\/a> at Disney and Home Depot, and voted for a \u201cnet zero emissions audit\u201d at ExxonMobil.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen is that the left has very significantly captured the leadership space in the financial sector,\u201d Jones said. But as conservatives begin to follow the same path, the number of shareholder proposals against ESG initiatives has increased fourfold, from fewer than 20 in 2020 to 74 this year.<\/p>\n<h2>ESG Shareholder Proposals Escalate<\/h2>\n<p>A March 2023 Wall Street Journal report stated that the number of shareholder proposals related to ESG has increased from about 600 in the 2020 spring annual meeting season to 682 so far this year. Shareholders are recently learning the cost of companies pursuing political agendas. This includes sharp declines in stock prices of companies like Target and Anheuser-Busch.<\/p>\n<h3>Florida Takes Steps Against ESG Movement<\/h3>\n<p>Florida has also taken other steps against the ESG movement, such as barring banks from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/state-pension-funds-defy-anti-esg-laws-when-voting-their-shares-watchdog-charges\/\" title=\"Watchdog accuses state pension funds of violating anti-ESG laws in voting shares.\">imposing personal social credit scores<\/a> on their customers. Jimmy Patronis, the state\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tokyo-olympics-set-to-go-on-regardless-of-covid-19-pandemic\/\" title=\"Tokyo Olympics Set To Go On \u2018Regardless\u2019 Of COVID-19 Pandemic\">chief financial officer<\/a>, stated that Florida was \u201cfighting back against ESG and social credit scoring \u2026 Floridians deserve a banking system that works for them and not some corporate activists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo participate in banking with state or local governments, financial institutions will have to sign an attestation that they will not discriminate against individuals or businesses on the basis of ESG standards,\u201d Florida Deputy Chief Financial Officer Frank Collins told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the efforts of conservative states, fund managers are continuing to vote shares according to their own personal beliefs. It remains to be seen whether these states will be successful in keeping ESG out of state funds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESG investments, state fund managers are still investing in companies with strong ESG practices, indicating a growing trend towards socially responsible investing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":887,"featured_media":1942424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[4640,13070,4543,7750,8186,4790,9704,4351,6056],"class_list":["post-1942423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-accuses","tag-anti-esg","tag-funds","tag-laws","tag-pension","tag-shares","tag-violating","tag-voting","tag-watchdog"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/887"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1942423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1942424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1942423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1942423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1942423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}