Several campus groups want to ask the state Legislature to remove state support from any company that does business with the Iran government or other businesses in that country. Tigers for Israel along with the College Democrats and the College Republicans met Wednesday night to discuss an effort the groups plan to undertake to lobby the state government. Tigers for Israel President Ari Krupkin told the 20 people who gathered inside the Union that the groups are going to start researching and lobbying for legislation that would bar the state from investing any state money in companies that do business in Iran. The restrictions would put pressure on the Iran government to stop developing nuclear weapons, said Krupkin, music performance and fiance junior. The lobbying effort is one of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's issues for the year, he said. Tigers for Israel is trained each year by AIPAC, who work to select a platform each year. The group wants to get a local legislator to sponsor a bill during the 2008 regular session that would prohibit the state from investing money with any company with ties to Iran, he said. Smoot Carter, Tigers for Israel campus political coordinator, said by working with College Democrats and College Republicans they hope to make this a campus-wide effort. "We all want to work together to make this an LSU bill," said Carter, political science junior. State law already prohibits the investing of state money for pension programs into accounts tied with Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria. The practice of divesting state pension funds is growing in popularity across the country. According to AIPAC's issue memo that Krupkin read from, divesting will help bring an end to nuclear development in Iran. "Divesting from these companies would reduce the risk to American shareholders while sending a strong signal to Iran that American states will not provide funds to help Iran advance its nuclear weapons pursuit and support terrorism," the memo states. But not everyone agrees with the growing popularity of state governments selling pension stock from companies that do business in Iran. In August, Edwin Burton, economics professor at the University of Virginia, wrote in Pension and Investment, a financial newspaper, that divestment hurts state taxpayers and creates a false pretense that doing so will impact the targeted countries. "What difference does it make whose name is on the stock certificate? How are the bad guys affected by who owns the stock? It seems likely the new owners could care less that the bad guys are bad guys. How does that help?" he wrote. But Krupkin said when deciding if divestment is a good idea the state has two options - do nothing or be proactive. He said he would rather try to take some steps toward halting nuclear development in Iran instead of waiting to see what happens. Luke White, political science senior, attended the meeting Wednesday night and said he worries that such sanctions might encourage countries like China and Russia to pick up the economic slack and possibly encourage Iran to continue to produce nuclear weapons. "Iran is a bad thing, but I just don't know if this is the right way," he said.
--- Contact Ginger Gibson at ggibson@lsureveille.com
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