Add Tom DiNapoli to the ever-growing list of New York comptrollers, both state and city, who use public pension funds to thump for their private political agendas.
DiNapoli is now asking President Obama to order all federal agencies and programs to recognize same-sex marriages issued in New York, an issue that has still not been decided by the US Supreme Court. That would allow DiNapoli to use his own power — as sole trustee of the state’s $160 billion pension funds — to pressure companies in which they’re invested to increase benefits for same-sex couples.
Playing politics with pension funds, of course, is an old story in New York — including with DiNapoli himself. We saw it in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, when DiNapoli announced the state would no longer invest in firearm companies and cashed out its holdings in Smith & Wesson.
What he doesn’t want you to remember is that his political decisions came at a cost to anyone who has a stake in those funds, because the fund cashed out when the company’s price share had bottomed out at $7.82. It’s now up to $11.
Previous comptrollers have also used pension funds to promote political positions, on issues from abortion to pharmaceutical marketing. And no doubt DiNapoli’s latest attempt to do the same with same-sex marriage will score him political points with a key Democratic constituency.
But when a comptroller politicizes the funds he oversees, he betrays the real responsibilities of his office: to ensure that funds are managed honestly, and to get the best return on investment for the people who depend on these pensions for their retirement, as well as for the taxpayers who contribute to them.