County investment portfolios are for maximizing returns for taxpayers, not taking political stances, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in an advisory opinion released Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While not binding, the opinion<\/a> acts as formal legal advice to Lucas County Prosecuting Attorney Julia Bates, who asked whether the county can lawfully halt further investments in Israel at year\u2019s end.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lucas County\u2019s $5 million in bonds in Israeli debt mature at the end of 2026, and some county officials and locals have pushed for divestment in light of Israel\u2019s invasion and occupation of Palestine and what critics, including several nation-states and a United Nations commission<\/a>, have alleged to be a genocide \u2013 a charge Israel denies.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Lucas County Investment Advisory Committee, a panel of officials that counsels the county treasurer, briefly considered immediate divestment (which would incur a financial penalty) before ditching the idea in lieu of penalty-free divestment at maturity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yost\u2019s opinion relies in part on a newly amended state law, enacted last year within the thousands of pages of Ohio\u2019s operating budget<\/a>, that says county investment decisions can\u2019t be motivated by influencing \u201cany environmental, social, personal or ideological policy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This means county officials can\u2019t consider \u201cnon-economic factors,\u201d like foreign policy or accusations of war crimes when making investment decisions, the opinion states. Instead, they should consider only risk, liquidity, portfolio diversity and other \u201cbona fide economic\u201d rationales.\u00a0<\/p>\n To do otherwise would expose treasurers to civil liability for violating legal duties as a fiduciary.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf the investment advisory committee\u2019s policy runs counter to these conditions in law, the treasurer is not bound to follow it,\u201d Yost wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n The commentary echoes a Republican backlash against what\u2019s known as ESG investing \u2013 i.e. tapping the muscle of institutional investors to try to levy environmental, social or governmental changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n County may still divest from Israel for economic reasons, not politics<\/p>\n The opinion leaves some room for Lucas County to divest at year\u2019s end, so long as the decision is motivated by economics and not politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n