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Feb
8
That’s what this article about states taking on divestment at the legislative level indicates:
Josh Mandel is a first-term legislator in the State of Ohio’s House of Representatives. He is also a US Marine Corps sergeant in reserves. Last year, Mandel arrived at the state house after a tour of duty in Iraq. There, he saw first-hand how Iran was fuelling the insurgency that is killing his fellow servicemen and Iraqi innocents. His experience led him to introduce a bill that would divest Ohio’s public employee pension funds from companies that do business with Iran and fellow state sponsor of terror Sudan.
As his bill made its way through the various committees, Mandel’s initiative received a body blow from an unexpected direction. AIPAC representatives approached him and asked him to pare down his bill’s divestment requirements to include only companies that invest more than $20 million in Iran’s oil and gas sector.
Mandel was surprised. Why should companies that invest in Iran’s defense, telecommunications and other sectors be immune from divestment? AIPAC went over his head to Ohio’s House Speaker Jon Hustead. Hustead amended the bill along AIPAC’s suggested lines.
I wasn’t aware that AIPAC was involved in the paring down. The Ohio MSM – that gets credentialed to follow our legislature – always portrayed the watering down and eventual tabling of the bill (HB 151) as being a result of concerns of other Ohio legislators, the parties to be affected and the need to include Sudan. So this influence from AIPAC is news to me.
Guess I should be checking to see if Josh is getting any political contributions from AIPAC for this year’s race for his seat, which is against Democrat and lawyer, Rob Belovich (who I’m told by two sources I trust is very impressive).
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:55 am February 8th, 2008 in Foreign Affairs, Government, Military, Ohio, Politics, Statehouse
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5 Responses to “AIPAC & Josh Mandel at odds”
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Jill, while you are at it…you might also want to see the political campaign contributions to Jon Husted, the Rep. who “brokered” this AIPAC influenced deal with all of the Executive Directors of Ohio’s public pension systems.
Good suggestion. I imagine AIPAC works to support them both – I’m just surprised that this note never came out in the Ohio press coverage.
Shabbat shalom Jill,
I have to wonder who was on that list of non-oil-and-gas companies doing business with Iran and who was the list of gas and oil companies doing less than $20 million in business?
In other words, who did AIPAC want to slip under the radar?
B’shalom,
Jeff
Jeff, I have that first list you are talking about. It appeared for one day on the Ohio Retirement Study Council’s website and then….quickly and without explanation was removed. I copied it before they took it off. Honda (which employs over 17,000 Ohioans) was one of the companies on that first list…so was Rolls Royce. If you remember, at that time Ohio was courting Rolls to build their factory in Ohio.If you are interested email me at curryjo@watchtv.net
John
Thanks for commenting, John. I know how important this issue is to you, and I don’t blame you. The whole thing is unseemly to me.