It’s Time To Investigate The Virginia Retirement System

Authored by Thomas Jones via RealClear Wire,

Documents obtained by the American Accountability Foundation have revealed that Virginia retirees’ pension funds are being used to implement a far-left agenda. This is an outrageous betrayal. Pension fund managers should be focused on maximizing returns, not on pursuing ideological goals.

The Virginia Retirement System (VRS), a state agency that manages the pensions of hundreds of thousands of state residents, holds voting rights at the annual shareholder meetings of companies in which they are invested.

Typically, voting at these meetings focuses on shareholder resolutions related to furthering good corporate governance practices and maximizing returns for shareholders. But these shareholder meetings have become ideological battlefields, as woke liberal groups (left-wing nonprofits, unions, progressive state treasurers, and others) have adopted a strategy of purchasing just enough stock in big corporations to put forward proposals of their own geared toward imposing their leftist Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) vision. Sadly, on this battlefield, the bureaucrats at VRS are fighting alongside the woke Left.

AAF’s review of proxy votes cast by VRS or its asset managers since 2022 found 74 votes supporting extreme leftist policies such as racial and gender pay-gap reports, efforts to defund conservative candidates and pro-business trade associations, radical climate policy, and pro-abortion initiatives.

Here are just a few examples:

• On May 24, 2023, VRS, advised by proxy advisor ISS, voted for Proposal 13 at Amazon, which called for additional reporting on gender and racial pay gaps at the company. This type of request for a “report” is a tactic used often by the Left to shame and intimidate corporations into adopting its preferred policies – in this case, racial and gender quotas. The proposal, brought forward by Arjuna Capital, chastised Amazon for “alleged unfair pay and working conditions” and claimed that “diversity in leadership is linked to superior stock performance and return on equity.” The proposal noted that “minorities represent 70 percent of Amazon’s workforce and 34 percent of leadership. Women represent 45 percent of the workforce and 23 percent of leadership.”
• On May 31, 2023, VRS, advised by ISS, voted in favor of a resolution at Meta Platforms that called for a “report on data privacy regarding reproductive healthcare.” The resolution derided the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision as “the revocation of the constitutional right to an abortion” and requested that Meta “issue a public report assessing the feasibility of diminishing the extent that the Company will be a target of abortion-related law enforcement requests.”
• At the May 2022 annual shareholder meeting of supermajor oil and gas company Shell PLC, VRS’s investment manager, Lansdowne Partners, voted for a resolution calling for Shell to set and publish emissions targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. This is a stunning betrayal of the nearly 200,000 Virginians who depend on energy jobs for their livelihoods. But the resolution didn’t just affect the energy industry itself—it aimed to limit use of energy by everyone, requesting that Shell adopt emissions-reduction targets that apply not only to the company’s operations but also to the end use of its energy products.

Laws and regulations covering racial issues, gender issues, abortion, and the environment should be decided by American voters – not by leftist activists and faceless corporate bureaucrats. But these are the forces that have come to be known as the ESG movement. They seek to circumvent our constitutional system of government in order to impose a far-left agenda that goes against the interests and values of the American people.

The Virginia Retirement System’s complicity in this disgraceful scheme should be investigated fully and corrected immediately.