State Senator Win Stoller has filed new legislation calling out the Illinois Office of State Treasurer for inserting political considerations into his management of the state’s investments. The state treasurer’s office manages nearly $60 billion in investments.
The State Treasurer bears the responsibility of assuring economic growth and prosperity within Illinois, and any deviation from this mandate in favor of political agendas is unacceptable and undermines the public trust in the office. The duties of the state treasurer are to protect and bolster the State’s investment portfolio and implement savings programs to aid Illinois residents in creating a better future for themselves.
“He is foregoing his fiduciary responsibility in favor of his political agenda. His responsibility to the people of Illinois is to maximize return on investment of taxpayer dollars. Period,” said Senator Stoller. “Simply put, the treasurer needs to keep politics out of his investment decisions.”
The Treasurer is a leading advocate of the highly controversial and politically motivated Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment philosophy. ESG has become a subjective and amorphous criterion that is inundated with controversial and political agendas. Due to its inherently political nature, ESG has fallen out of favor, with many major investment firms having abandoned this approach and returned to a focus on maximizing investment returns.
“The government has a terrible history as an investor with a political agenda, with boondoggles like Solyndra still etched in the public mind,” noted Senator Stoller. “As recently as last week, the treasurer inserted himself in a controversial, political shareholder dispute at a major U.S. corporation, acting more as activist shareholder than a conscientious steward of public money.”
Senate Resolution 1003 currently sits in the Assignments Committee.