Sacramento Approves Ethical Investment Policy Amendment, Divests from Lockheed Martin

SACRAMENTO - The Sacramento City Council on June 9 approved a socially responsible investment policy amendment aiming to stop investments in companies fueling war and severe human rights violations like genocide and apartheid.

The resolution also aims to restrict facilitating prison labor and mass incarceration, immigration detention, surveillance, or profiting from the weapons, tobacco, or fossil fuel industries, according to advocates in the Reinvest In Sacramento coalition. You can see pg. 15 of the staff report for details.

Council Members Roger Dickinson, Mai Vang, Eric Guerra, Rick Jennings, Karina Talamantes and Caity Maple voted for the resolution, while Phil Pluckebam abstained. Mayor Kevin McCarty and Council Member Lisa Kaplan were absent.

On the following day, City Treasurer John Colville divested from Lockheed Martin. The city has a $5 million investment in Lockheed Martin, amounting to just 0.3% of the pooled fund.

After the vote, Mai Vang said, "This week, Sacramento took an important step toward ensuring our public dollars reflect our public values. I’m grateful to have led this effort."

Roger Dickinson also applauded the vote. "The Council today approved an addition to the City’s investment policy to ensure our investments are made in a socially responsible manner. This important step will align our values with our investments. I was happy to be an author of the policy along with Councilmember Mai Vang."

Representatives of Reinvest in Sacramento, a broad-based coalition of 34 Palestinian human rights, immigrant rights, labor, environmental, health, and community groups, celebrated the passage of the amendment.

"Sacramento joins Alameda County, Richmond, Albany, Dublin, and Pasadena as well as communities across the country responding to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement’s call to cut ties with the companies fueling genocide, apartheid, and war crimes, as well as systems of oppression here at home, like mass incarceration and immigrant detention and surveillance," said Amira Elmallah, Reinvest in Sacramento Coalition. "Communities are asserting our right to have a say in how our public funds are used. Investing in companies profiting off of human suffering is a misuse of public funds and we thank Sacramento City Council for taking action to recognize that."

"In the same step, we commit to divestment from the interconnected systems repressing our communities here at home - companies perpetuating immigrant detention and mass incarceration, prison labor, surveillance and environmental destruction. We are not free until we are all free," she added.

The coalition thanked the community for the "dedication and leadership to bring us here," Council Members Mai Vang and Roger Dickinson for championing the policy, the Treasurer for introducing it, and Councilmembers Maple, Talamantes, Guerra and Jennings for "putting people first."

"We remember that the struggle is not over and we continue until Palestine is free. The genocide in Palestine is ongoing–Israel has just shut off, again, all crossings into Gaza blocking all aid, food and fuel; it continues a regional campaign of terror by bombing Iran, and occupying and bombing southern Lebanon and evicting over 1 million people from their homes in Beirut," the coalition wrote in a statement.

In addition, Coalition members called on the City Council to pass an ordinance, not a resolution, to ensure local law enforcement isn’t collaborating with ICE to "kidnap and unjustly detain our neighbors in inhumane conditions. We call on them to invest in the community they serve by prioritizing in this year’s budget preventative and legal resources for immigrant communities, rather than increased policing and criminalization of those needs."

The organizations in this Coalition said they came together around a shared demand for corporate accountability, starting with Sacramento city government putting people first.

The Sacramento City Council divested from fossil fuel companies in 2021 and from tobacco companies in 2019 in recognition of the widespread harm these companies cause to people and the environment.

Prior to the meeting, the Coalition convened a press conference outside of City Hall. Press conference speakers included Sacramento City Council Members Mai Vang (D8) and Roger Dickinson (D2), Sarah Alzanoon (Palestine American League), Trinity Smyth (Fossil Free CA), Christopher-Camilo Carbajal-Carbajal (Decarcercate Sacramento), Moiz Mir (Asian American Liberation Network, Anne Hilborn (CAPS UAW Local 1115 member), and David Mandel, Jewish Voice for Peace Sacramento. Amira Elmallah, representing the Reinvest in Sacramento Coalition, moderated the conference.

Sara Alzanoon: "It's time to reinvest in life and divest from death"

Sarah Alzanoon, who is half Palestinian and half Venezuelan and serves on the board of the Palestinian American League, gave a passionate and informative presentation outlining why passing the amendment was so important:

"I'm here to discuss how we can move forward with divesting from corporations that enable severe harm, so we can focus on what truly matters: investing in our community. Currently we do have city funds in companies complicit in apartheid, immigration detention, surveillance, labor abuse and mass incarceration.

"The current city investments do not reflect our values; they instead cause suffering and destruction that deeply affect families I like mine, which have suffered at the hands of weapons made in our city. It's time to reinvest in life and divest from death. Sacramento residents need to see that their tax dollars should not go to the profiteers of genocide, apartheid, and war crimes abroad, nor support domestic terror by ICE here at home.

"The public revenues that the city collects, including those from me and other civil servants, are being used to fund weapons manufacturers and other corporations that use technology to enable harm. These include Lockheed Martin, and Caterpillar.

"We tend to have a cognitive dissonance because we do not see the faces of those children we harm. We do not have to witness the last harrowing seconds that they have to endure before a lethal weapon hits them.

"People in power only seem to believe your pain when it looks like theirs. Their empathy has borders, skin tones and papers. They love people selectively. It's only humanity when the person shedding tears looks like a reflection in the mirror.

"How would you feel if your own tax dollar or money that you help collect for the State of California were used to fund the bullets and weapons to kill your family abroad in Gaza?

That is my reality.

"Here are the names of some of my family members killed

- Ahmed Al Zanoun, age 16

- Shaza Al Zanoun, age 16

- Hana Al Zanoun, age 15

- Karima Al Zanoun, age 14

- Saja Al Zanoun, age 10

- Yassin, who was only a newborn.

"These are 7 of 57 members of my family.

"You may say that this has nothing to do with the City of Sacramento, but you have a great say in policy choices, you have a say in city investments and divestments, and when all is said and done, you have a choice today to stick up for humanity and a choice not to.

"We hope you make the right choice today."

Other Reinvest in Sacramento Coalition members shared why they supported the policy at the press conference.

“The struggle against mass incarceration is connected to struggles against war, occupation, detention, and displacement," said Christopher-Camilo Carbajal-Carbajal, Program & Campaign Coordinator, Decarcerate Sacramento. "The very same systems and corporations profiting from the genocide of Palestinians and other communities abroad are often the same systems and corporations that keep people poor, unhoused, surveilled, detained, and incarcerated here at home. Sacramento’s public funds should reflect our values by investing in communities, not in systems that generate profit from human suffering.”

“Fossil fuel corporations continue to do business as usual to extract, exploit and harm people and the world for profit," concluded Trinity Smyth, Fossil Free CA. "The inclusion of criteria to enshrine the City’s divestment from publicly-traded fossil fuel corporations helps to break the stronghold these corporations have over our political and economic systems. It also sets a clear path to invest in the well-being of families that live here now and in future generations.”

Reinvest in Sacramento will push city to divest from Amazon, IBM and Caterpillar

However, there is some disagreement over between advocates and the City Treasurer John Colville regarding what corporations are covered under the policy.

Reinvest in Sacramento wants to see city divestment from Amazon, IBM and Caterpillar Inc. under the new policy, but city treasurer John Colville told the Sacramento Bee that those companies do not fit the parameters described in the new policy: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article316063232.html

"Amazon's primary business is not to listen to other people," Colville said. "Caterpillar is another one I have an issue with — Caterpillar does a lot more than create military use vehicles."

The city holds $15 million investments in Amazon and IBM and $5 million in Caterpillar, amounting to another 1.9% of the city's pooled fund.

Reinvest in Sacramento vows to keep pressure on the City to divest from these corporations. "On June 10^th, the Treasurer divested from Lockheed Martin; we will continue to push for the City to uphold its commitment by divesting from Caterpillar, IBM and Amazon," the group stated.

Below is the City of Sacramento's amended policy on Socially Responsible Investments:

Socially Responsible investments standards are integral to an impact-driven and financially prudent investment policy that aligns City investments with broader societal objectives. Adopting these standards will better align with the guiding principles of the City’s 2040 General plan. The investment of City funds shall follow a set of socially responsible principles and standards based on the screening criteria outlined below. The City Treasurer will use these criteria to inform investment decisions to the extent that they do not compromise the primary investment objectives which are, in order of priority, safety, liquidity and yield; nor the City’s “prudent person” standards:

a. No investments shall be made in companies involved in the manufacturing of tobacco or tobacco related products.

b. No investments shall be made in individual publicly traded fossil fuel companies

c. No investments shall be made in companies found to have committed or enabled severe violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws; including but not limited to child labor, forced labor, and forced community resettlement; whether domestically or internationally.

d. No investments shall be made in companies whose primary operations are the production of chemical or biological war weapons or bombs nor the production of automatic or semi-automatic rifles, ghost guns, machine guns, and crew-served weapons, marketed for civilian sale and use.

e. No investments shall be made in companies whose primary business activities are involved in mass incarceration and detention, including but not limited to investments in companies that build, own, operate or service private prisons; nor in companies that use prison labor.

f. No investments shall be made in companies whose primary objective is the facilitation of or involved in immigration detention, nor in companies providing surveillance technology.

g. Investments shall, when feasible, prioritize local financial institutions, companies, and organizations that actively engage in objectives that directly support the well-being of all Sacramento city residents. Examples include securities that support community development, green municipal bonds that finance sustainable energy, transportation, and infrastructure as consistent with Local Considerations/Community Investments detailed in Section 2.