A progressive business group sued Texas on Thursday over a 2021 law that restricts state investments in companies that, according to the state, “boycott” the fossil fuel industry.against Attorney General Ken Paxton and Comptroller Glenn Hegar, alleging that the law, Senate Bill 13, constitutes viewpoint discrimination and denies companies due process, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
“Elected and appointed public officials have a duty to act in the best interests of the people they serve,” a BlackRock spokesperson said at the time. “Politicizing state pension funds, restricting access to investments, and impacting the financial returns of retirees, is not consistent with that duty.”
The group said the Texas law was enacted to go after what Republican lawmakers saw as a “burgeoning fossil fuel discrimination movement,” and that it effectively “infringes rights of free speech and association under a scheme of politicized viewpoint discrimination” and allows Texas officials to “punish companies they believe are insufficiently supportive of the fossil fuel industry.”
The suit also alleged that the law violates companies’ right to due process because vagueness in the statute “encourages arbitrary enforcement” and fails to provide blacklisted companies a fair process to contest their designation.
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