More than two dozen Republican lawmakers want to constitutionally block state and local governments from buying items or investing in any company that does business with the government of Iran.
The proposal crafted by House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro would ban investment in any company that does business with the government of a country designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. That list also currently includes Syria and Sudan. But Montenegro said his measure is aimed at Iran now that sanctions against that country are being eased and American firms are looking to do business there.
"I think that it's important for us as a state to be able to decide where the public money is going. And the state wants to make sure that the dollars that they have are not being invested into companies that are directly doing business with state sponsors of terror," said Montenegro.
But Nick Ponder, spokesman for the Arizona State Retirement Systemm, said the problem is the language is effectively more restrictive than it sounds. That's because many Iranian companies are at least partly owned by the government there, like the oil and gas industry that needs to be recapitalized.
"You could imagine that there would be a significant number of companies, not only U.S. companies but non-U.S. companies that we have investments in that we have investments in that would be interested in capitalizing on that market," Montenegro said.
And he said Iran Air, which is looking to buy planes from Boeing and Airbus — both companies in which the retirement fund has stock — is 60 percent owned by the Iranian government.