JOEL ANDERSON (77-ALPINE) TAKES ON IRAN
Iran divestiture act breezes through Assembly

Iran divestiture act breezes through Assembly

by Malcom Maclachan
June 7, 2007

Capitol Weekly News

It's rare that any bill gets the kind of bipartisan support enjoyed by AB 221--especially one authored by a freshman Republican. The bill, which calls for the state's largest pension funds to divest from Iran, sailed through the Assembly on Tuesday with a 75-0 vote. It's even garnered support from a bipartisan group of California Congress members.

"The president of Iran has said that it is his goal to attack the great Satan, develop nuclear weapons and wipe Israel from the face of the Earth," said author Assemblyman Joel Anderson, R-La Mesa, when presenting his bill on the floor. "I take him at his word."

The funds in questions, known as CalPERS and CalSTRS, manage over $400 billion between them. CalPERS spokesman Clark McKinley said that the version of the bill that passed likely would force the fund to move about $2 billion in assets, at a cost of around $25 million.
"Those are real ballpark," McKinley said. "We don't have the figures fully nailed down yet."

McKinley said an earlier version of the bill could have affected more than $8 billion in CalPERS assets. However, Anderson took an amendment to focus the bill on the worst offenders, mainly 19 oil companies identified by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Anderson was able to sign up 26 co-authors for the California Public Divest from Iran Act, eight of them Democrats. The list included well-known liberal legislators like Sally Lieber and Lloyd Levine, as well as dyed-in-the-wool conservatives like Mike Villines and Chuck DeVore.

The only opposition on the floor came from Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, D-Compton. Dymally took issue with Anderson's comparison of his bill to the landmark 1986 effort by Representative Maxine Waters to lead divestment from South Africa. Dymally abstained during the vote.

"We're talking about apples and oranges here," Dymally said. "The entire world was against apartheid, not just a single country."

Anderson's bill has also gotten notice in Washington, D.C., with four members of California's congressional delegation actively supporting it. This group includes Jewish liberal Democrat Howard Berman and Democrat George Miller along with two conservative Republicans: Kevin McCarthy and Ed Royce.

On May 23, the Congress members sent a letter of support to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez. The letter cited Iran's nuclear ambitions and its support of terrorist groups in the Middle East.

"Why do business with a grave threat to world peace, whose regime calls for the death of our country, belligerently threatens our allies and works to acquire a nuclear weapon, while at the same time supporting terrorists that kill our brave men and women facing the enemy in Iraq and funding Hezbollah that shoot rockets at our ally Israel?" said Nick Bouknight, a spokesman for McCarthy.

It is this last point--traditional U.S. support for Israel and opposition to anti-Semitism--that partially explains the bills widespread support. The Congress member's letter also cites the Holocaust-denial conference sponsored by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran in January 2006, a position that has added to fuel to an already contentious U.S.-Iranian relationship.

Ahmadinejad's stance that the Holocaust is a "myth" has earned him widespread condemnation around the world--and widespread support among Iran's devoutly Muslim lower classes. According to many Middle East watchers, Iran has the most progressive and secular population in the region outside of Turkey, though these elements are at odds with the country's religious rulers. Ahmadinejad, a former mayor of Tehran with working-class roots, is widely viewed as a puppet of the country's real leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iranian officials have countered U.S. criticism with arguments over the threat they say they feel from the United States. They share borders with American-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as with two other regional powers with a large American presence, Turkey and Pakistan.

On April 18, 1988, the United States and Iran fought the largest naval battle since World War II, involving dozens of ships, planes and oil platforms in the Persian Gulf. Operation Praying Mantis, as the exchange was known to the U.S. military, came in response to heavy damage to a U.S. warship by an floating Iranian mine. It ended with two Iranian ships and a half dozen smaller vessels sunk, damage to another U.S. ship, and led to a 2003 World Court judgment against the United States.

Divestment efforts toward Iran go back at least a decade. The Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 slaps sanctions on foreign companies with investments of over $20 million in Iran's energy sector. Another member of California's delegation, Congressman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, has submitted a bill to add additional sanctions.

Last month, Florida became the first state to vote for divestment for Iran; it will redirect about $1 billion in state funds. Meanwhile, a Canadian member of Parliament, Irwin Cotler, has been leading an effort to call for U.N. sanctions against Iran. Cotler cites the Argentine government's findings that Iran was behind the 2004 bombing of a Jewish Cultural Center in that country that killed 87 people.

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