Capitol Briefs: Pelosi, pensions and antitrust

It’s been a long week and it’s only…checks calendar…Tuesday! Check out a rare early week Capitol Briefs.

The long-awaited Pelosi endorsement: No, not for governor. But retiring Representative and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi finally endorsed one of the candidates seeking to replace her – San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan.

The coveted nod from Pelosi, considered by many to be the most powerful and respected politician in the City’s history, could be a tremendous boost to Chan, who trails frontrunning state Sen. Scott Wiener in the polls by a significant margin but who is in a virtual tie with fellow candidate Saikat Chakrabarti.

The top two candidates will proceed to a runoff in November.

Now about that governor’s race….

Major antitrust bill heads to the Assembly floor: Speaking of contentious measures, the Assembly Appropriations Committee last Thursday moved AB 1776, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters), off the Suspense File and to the full Assembly. The measure, known as the Competition and Opportunity in Markets for a Prosperous, Equitable and Transparent Economy (COMPETE) Act, would revise California’s 119-year-old antitrust law by clarifying that anti-competitive conduct by a single company would violate state law and reaffirm that California courts are not bound by federal antitrust case law. Current state law requires there be at least two companies involved for antitrust provisions to come into play.

The proposal is supported by a number of labor organizations, including the California Federation of Labor Unions, SEIU California, the California Nurses Association, Consumer Attorneys of California, Consumer Federation of California, Small Business Majority, and the California District Attorneys Association.

Primary opposition comes from the California Chamber of Commerce.

New pension documentary: Contentious bills are the norm in the California Legislature; bills with their own documentary are most definitely not.

That’s where SB 1319 comes in. The bill, known as the Private Equity Sunshine Act and authored by Sens. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) and Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), would require public investment funds to disclose information about their alternate investments, including their fees paid and whether they outperform public markets.

Retired public employees are hosting the world premiere of the new documentary “Pension Fight Club” Tuesday evening at the Crest Theater in part to highlight their support for the legislation.

Directed by Doug Orchard, “Pension Fight Club” examines the risks of public pension investments into private equity. The Retired Public Employees’ Association of California is hosting the premiere—although the organization calls the event far more than a screening.

The group says it’s intended as a challenge to CalPERS over what they say is its practice of concealing information about investments into private equity.

In California, 80 public investment funds manage over $1.4 trillion in retirement assets combined. Increasingly, their allocations are going to alternative investments in private equity, real assets, private debt and hedge funds.

CalPERS, for example, had allocated $212 billion, or 35% of its total portfolio, into alternative investments as of the end of last year.

However, unlike public companies these investments are not subject to standard disclosures, which means information about them is limited and returns are difficult to compare with more traditional allocations.

“SB 1319 is about accountability,” Cortese said in mid-April after the bill passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It ensures that pension beneficiaries and taxpayers can clearly see how these investments perform compared to public markets, where their money is going, and who ultimately controls the companies involved.

“When billions in public dollars are at stake, secrecy cannot be the standard. Transparency must be.”

The CalPERS Board of Administration had been scheduled on Monday to consider a staff recommendation to oppose the bill, but the meeting was cancelled.

“SB 1319 would roll back private investment protections established in 2005, placing CalPERS at a competitive disadvantage compared to other institutional investors who do not face similar requirements,” the staff report said. “The bill threatens CalPERS’ access to top-performing private equity, private credit, infrastructure and real estate funds, which may choose to find other pools of capital rather than consent to provide proprietary and trade secret information.”

The screening starts at 5 p.m. tonight. Tickets are free. To attend, RSVP at this link or call 800-443-7732.