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Record Refutes Palin's Sudan Claim
During Vice Presidential Debate |
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October 3, 2008 Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
fought to protest atrocities in Sudan by
dropping assets tied to the country's brutal
regime from the state's multi-billion-dollar
investment fund, she claimed during Thursday's
vice presidential debate.
Not quite, according to a review of the public
record – and according to the recollections of
a legislator and others who pushed a measure
to divest Alaskan holdings in Sudan-linked
investments.
"The [Palin] administration killed our bill,"
said Alaska state representative Les Gara,
D-Anchorage. Gara and state Rep. Bob Lynn,
R-Anchorage, co-sponsored a resolution early
this year to force the Alaska Permanent Fund –
a $40 billion investment fund, a portion of
whose dividends are distributed annually to
state residents – to divest millions of
dollars in holdings tied to the Sudanese
government.
In Thursday's debate, Palin said she had
advocated the state divest from Sudan. "When I
and others in the legislature found out that
we had some millions of dollars [of Permanent
Fund investments] in Sudan, we called for
divestment through legislation of those
dollars," Palin said.
But a search of news clips and transcripts
from the time do not turn up an instance in
which Palin mentioned the Sudanese crisis or
concerns about Alaska's investments tied to
the ruling regime. Moreover, Palin's
administration openly opposed the bill, and
stated its opposition in a public hearing on
the measure.
"The legislation is well-intended, and the
desire to make a difference is noble, but
mixing moral and political agendas at the
expense of our citizens' financial security is
not a good combination," testified Brian
Andrews, Palin's deputy revenue commissioner,
before a hearing on the Gara-Lynn Sudan
divestment bill in February. Minutes from the
meeting are posted online by the legislature.
Gara says the lack of support from Palin's
administration helped kill the measure.
"I walked out of that hearing livid," Gara
recalled of the February meeting. Because of
the Palin administration's opposition to the
bill, "We could not get a vote in that
committee," he explained. At no point did
Palin come out in support of the effort, Gara
said.
The bill's Republican co-sponsor remembers
things differently. "I know she was very
strongly behind this," said Rep. Lynn. Asked
why, if Palin supported the bill, one of her
administration's officials would speak against
it, Lynn demurred. "We don't all work in
lockstep here," he said. "People have
different opinions," he added.
Lynn said he and Palin agreed to re-introduce
the bill next January, and push to pass it
then. He declined to consider whether stronger
support from Palin would have helped the bill
survive this winter. "I'm not going to do this
what if, what if, what if," he said. "These
are hypotheticals."
Gara said that after it was clear the bill had
stalled, he and others pressed the
administration directly on Sudan divestment.
"We were outraged," Gara recounted. "We went
to the Commissioner of Revenue and said, 'What
the hell are you guys doing? This is genocide.
We're going to keep pushing this until we
divest."
Two months later, at the end of the
legislative session, the administration
softened its position. Appearing before a
Senate committee which was considering a
companion measure to Gara's bill, Palin's
Revenue commissioner, Patrick Galvin, stated
the administration supported such a measure,
though it hoped to amend the bill to allow for
investments held indirectly, for example in
index funds.
"At the last minute they showed up" and
supported the divestment effort, Gara said.
But by then the legislative session was almost
over, and there wasn't enough time to get it
passed.
The Alaska Permanent Fund currently holds $22
million in Sudan-linked investments, according
to the non-profit Sudan Divestment Task Force.
Divestment advocates say the fund does not
need an act of the state legislature to divest
itself of those holdings.
The McCain-Palin campaign did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been a strong
supporter of Sudan divestment efforts, and has
urged Americans to liquidate their holdings in
companies who do business there. He was
criticized for that position when it was
revealed in May his wife Cindy held $2 million
in investment funds owning shares of
Sudan-linked companies. She sold those
holdings following a reporter's inquiries. |
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