An editorial from today's "San Antonio Express-News"...
(Note: This is the first time I've needed to resort to using the Bug Me Not site--which lists accounts that the public can use to bypass free-registration requirements--in order to gain access to the actual text.)
Lawmakers in Austin don't often transcend the politically mundane to do something of global significance. But that's the opportunity they have today with a resolution offered by Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth.
Burnam's measure encourages managers of Texas public pension funds to divest the stock of companies doing business in Sudan.
The genocidal war waged by the Sudanese government and its Janjaweed militia allies against the residents of Darfur is believed to have claimed more than 200,000 lives. Human rights atrocities, including the systematic use of rape against women and girls, are widespread.
U.S. law has barred American companies from doing business in Sudan since 1997. Foreign companies face no such restrictions.
According to DivestSudan, for instance, the San Antonio Fire and Police Pension Fund has more than $23 million invested in the stocks of 16 foreign companies doing business in Sudan.
The effort to divest has bipartisan support. Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, a Bush appointee, endorsed the effort. Burnam's legislation is co-authored by a diverse group that includes Rep. Corbin Van Arsdale, R-Houston, and Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio.
The House Committee on Pensions and Investments passed the resolution with unanimous support, including that of Rep. Joe Straus, R-San Antonio.
Burnam had also introduced a bill that would have prohibited state funds from owning stock in companies that do business in Sudan. The bill unanimously cleared the Pensions and Investment Committee as well, but died a slow death in the Calendars Committee, chaired by Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston.
That inaction had the unfortunate whiff of partisan retribution against Burnam, one of only four House members who voted against Tom Craddick, R-Midland, for House speaker.
Woolley has appropriately sent the nonbinding resolution to the House floor. Divestment from Sudan is an effort of international, humanitarian concern that rises above politics in Austin.
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