DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Several asset managers leveraged Idahoans’ pension funds to support a racial and climate agenda in 2022 and 2023, according to a report from a conservative watchdog group, the American Accountability Foundation.
The Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho used six asset managers—Adelante Capital Management, AllianceBernstein, Brandes Investment Partners, Fiera Capital, Longview Partners, and Mellon Capital Management—that handled more than $5 billion of the pension system’s stock portfolio, according to its investment report.
These managers used Idahoans’ pension funds to support over 150 environmental, social, and governance shareholder resolutions on issues including race, gender, climate change, and politics, according to documents obtained by the American Accountability Foundation through a public records request and shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The people of Idaho never voted for racial equity audits or strangling American energy, yet these ESG money managers are leveraging Idaho’s pension funds to push for these policies anyway,” American Accountability Foundation President Thomas Jones said. “This is just another example of how ESG seeks to subvert the will of the American people and impose their radical agenda whether we like it or not.”
There were 153 examples of these asset managers voting in support of what the watchdog refers to as “woke” shareholder proposals using funds from the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho. They include “racial and gender pay gap reports, efforts to defund conservative candidates and pro-business trade associations, radical climate policy, and pro-abortion initiatives,” the American Accountability Foundation said.
For instance, AllianceBernstein in 2023 used PERSI’s pension funds to vote in support of a “racial equity audit” proposal at Comcast, which shareholders didn’t approve. The resolution, introduced by the Service Employees International Union Master Trust, advocated that the board of directors “oversee an independent racial equity audit analyzing Comcast’s adverse impacts on nonwhite stakeholders and communities of color and describing the steps, if any, Comcast plans to take to mitigate those impacts.”
AllianceBernstein also voted in 2023 to support a resolution at Wells Fargo for a “Report on Congruency of Political Spending,” to evaluate how the banking giant’s political contributions align with its corporate values of supporting ESG. The proposal, which shareholders also rejected, particularly takes issue with Wells Fargo’s backing the State Financial Officers Foundation and the Republican Attorneys General Association because they oppose ESG policies.
In 2022, Mellon leveraged PERSI’s pension funds to vote to back a resolution at Chevron for the oil giant to publish targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to align with the Paris climate agreement and “limit global warming,” according to the proposal.
The asset manager in the same year used the system’s funds to vote in support of a resolution for AT&T to publish a report on its political expenditures and how they line up with company values, including “carbon neutrality,” according to the resolution from As You Sow, a nonprofit that assigns ESG scores to companies.
Shareholders ultimately didn’t approve the resolutions at Comcast, Wells Fargo, or Chevron.
But Mellon voted in support of a resolution at The Walt Disney Co. in 2022 pushing for a “Pay Equity Report” at the company, which shareholders approved.
“Actively managing pay equity is associated with improved representation and diversity is linked to superior stock performance and return on equity,” it states. “Black employees represent 8% of Disney’s workforce, but only 5% of executive leadership. Women account for 51% of Disney’s workforce and 42% of executive leadership.”
The Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho managed retirement and benefit plans for over 65,000 public employees in that state as of 2017, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security.
“The PERSI fund (DB plan) does not have any investments in funds with an ESG mandate,” a spokesperson for the state pension system said, referring to a defined benefit plan.
PERSI’s “investment managers are responsible for voting all proxies in a manner consistent with the best economic interest of the system for the exclusive benefit of the system,” its investment policy statement said.
However, critics argue that ESG investments fail to serve shareholders’ best fiduciary interests.
“It would be outrageous for PERSI asset managers to advance their own personal political agendas using the property of Idaho workers and families. Even to suggest doing so indicates sufficient grounds for termination,” Idaho economist JD Foster, former chief economist at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, adding: “Asset managers should have one agenda and that is to maximize the value of the assets under management subject to the normal guidelines of fiduciaries.”
The S&P Global Clean Energy Index has plunged by about 10% this year, while the S&P 500 Energy Index, which features many oil and gas firms, rose over 7%.
Asset managers also used Nevadans’ pension funds to push similar proposals, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported, based on another public records request by the American Accountability Foundation. Nevada Public Employee Retirement System enlists the services of asset managers such as BlackRock, AllianceBernstein, Mellon, and State Street Global Advisors, who collectively manage over $30 billion of the system’s stock portfolio.
Adelante, AllianceBernstein, Brandes, Fiera, Longview, and Iowa state Treasurer Julie Ellsworth didn’t respond to requests for comment. Mellon declined to comment.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
