The previous president of Oklahoma’s largest public worker affiliation has filed a lawsuit difficult the state’s anti-ESG regulation as unconstitutional and hurting state pensions for public staff.

The lawsuit, filed by Don Keenan, president of the Oklahoma Former Public Workers Affiliation, asks an Oklahoma district courtroom to dam the regulation’s implementation and stop Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Ross from implementing it.

Mr Keenan accused Mr Ross of making an attempt to “play politics with the cash of state staff and pensioners”.

“The retirement system isn’t taxpayer cash; “It’s compensation acquired by energetic staff who at present pay into the system and retirees who’ve contributed to the identical system for many years,” Mr. Keenan stated in a press release. “The choice to pursue authorized motion in opposition to Todd Ross was not made evenly, however we really feel it’s essential to strengthen the fiduciary duty of our retirement programs.”

A 2021 state regulation positioned most of the world’s largest funding corporations and banks on a blacklist created by Mr. Ross. The businesses on the listing used an funding technique that included environmental, social and governance – or ESG – concerns and thus prevented corporations linked to fossil fuels on account of local weather change.

The blacklisted corporations included BlackRock and State Avenue, of which the Oklahoma Public Workers Retirement System holds practically 60% of its $10 billion in belongings.

The Oklahoma Public Workers Retirement System board in August permitted a statutory exemption from fiduciary responsibility to not divest after the pension system estimated it may price them $10 million in decrease returns and charges. Mr. Ross, a board member, forged the lone vote in opposition to the exemption and stated the board was violating the regulation.

“The spirit and intent of the regulation is to guard Oklahomans and the state’s financial base,” Mr. Ross stated in response to the lawsuit. “I’d be completely satisfied to work with the Legislature sooner or later.”

Mr. Keenan claimed that the regulation, along with harming the pension, is unconstitutional as a result of it “violates the First Modification’s coercion of expression, viewpoint discrimination, and content material discrimination.”

Oklahoma is one in every of dozens of purple states which have enacted anti-ESG legal guidelines and fought “woke capitalism.” The anti-ESG motion has seen widespread legislative success in the USA, and has surprised a lot of the monetary world.

Nonetheless, there have been some setbacks even in Republican-dominated states, the place pension directors and banking associations warn that blacklisting main monetary establishments will price state pension funds extra money and harm funding returns.

Legal guidelines like Oklahoma’s have been enacted in different states with out violating fiduciary duties, stated the State Fiscal Officers Basis, a nonprofit that has labored intently in recent times with Republican state finance officers on anti-ESG measures.