Rep. Tim Leonard, R-Evergreen, the newest member of the Colorado Legislature, made a grand statement Thursday, traveling down to the well of the House for his first time, initiating a dramatic legislative maneuver and holding forth at length, all in opposition to a bill popular with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that seeks to prevent the state’s employee retirement fund from investing with companies that participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement against Israel.

“I think a bill like this just entangles our state in foreign affairs,” Leonard said in second-reading debate over House Bill 1284. “It not only singles out a specific country but it actually singles out enemies of another country … It so entangles us that we have to (monitor) boycott laws from one ally to another ally, lest one ally is boycotting another ally. It has Colorado meddle in the affairs of a conflict that is 5,000 years old.

“Worse than just meddling, it directs (the public employees’ retirement association or PERA) to participate in that,” he continued. “It directs PERA to compromise itself on weighing risk and return — which is what investment advisors should do … instead of spending resources actually looking into political affairs of different countries and different companies in different countries. That’s a misdirection of what PERA should be doing.

“Every American, every Coloradan has a soft spot for his or her country,” he said. “What is next … Are we going to boycott Scotland for not seceding from England? The list goes on and on.”

After his objections failed to persuade, Leonard called for a committee of the whole, or “COW,” amendment, which required a recorded vote on the bill, an unusual step when a second-reading voice vote on a bill isn’t close, and this one wasn’t close. The bill drew 61 aye votes and just 4 nay votes.

Sponsored by Daniel Nordberg, R-Colorado Springs, and Assistant Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, HB 1284 is part of a larger movement across the country in which state lawmakers are introducing measures to protect Israel from the BDS movement. The Jerusalem Post reported Friday that 22 state legislatures are considering anti-BDS bills.

Leonard’s floor show was something to watch. He had taken a stand against fellow Republicans on an issue that the caucus generally supports in bold lock-step strides. The action also stood out for being raised during a campaign season in which the large field of Republican presidential primary candidates have worked to outdo each other in exclaiming their support for Israel.

Indeed, there was some of that dynamic at work behind the scenes at the Capitol as Republicans eyed Colorado’s anti-BDS bill. It led to Nordberg striking out a legislative declaration that originally accompanied the bill that provided brief historic background on the U.S.-Israel relationship, touted Israel as a top U.S. ally and one of Colorado’s valued trade partners and decried the BDS movement as biased and divisive. The declaration also included a section on the Israel-Palestinian conflict that included a statement of support for a “two-state solution.”

“Promoting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, mutual understanding, and the achievement of a two-state solution are in the United States’ national interest,” said the declaration.

That was a step too far for hardline conservative members of the House.

Rep. Pat Neville, R-Castle Rock, told The Statesman that he planned to propose an amendment to strike the declaration from the bill, but that Nordberg agreed to strike the language himself.

“I just didn’t like putting Israel in a box that way, putting in the two-state solution,” Neville said. “The declaration just didn’t pertain to the bill.”

Nordberg is a staunch champion of Israel and he is a deeply conservative lawmaker by most any measure — most being the key word, joked sources at the Capitol Thursday.

“I’ll just say I was actually pleasantly surprised by how the debate went and I’m encouraged that only one person came down to the well in opposition,” Nordberg said.

Asked if he was sympathetic in the least to Leonard’s opposition, Nordberg said flatly “no,” he wasn’t sympathetic. “Not at all.”

“To me this bill was about fiduciary responsibility and it is well within our means to regulate risk to our pension system, and investing in companies that discriminate based on nationality and religion, those companies are more concerned with injecting themselves into political movements than they are with garnering a positive return on investment,” Nordberg said. “So, to me, we simply shouldn’t be investing in those companies.”

Leonard, an Evergreen real estate developer, was appointed at the end of January to fill a vacancy created after Rep. Jon Keyser, R-Morrison, resigned to campaign for the Republican Party nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

As the Colorado Statesman reported at the time, Leonard won endorsement from eight of the “most conservative members” of the House — state Reps. Patrick Neville, Justin Everett of Littleton, Steve Humphrey of Severance, Janak Joshi of Colorado Springs, Kim Ransom of Parker, Lori Saine of Dacono, Kevin Van Winkle of Highlands Ranch and, notably — Nordberg.

“Leonard is a rock-ribbed conservative who will be bold, who will fight and who will never cower in the face of adversity,” read a letter the eight wrote in support of Leonard’s appointment.

Leonard has run for office three times in the past, twice for the state Senate in 2010 and 2006, and once for governor in 1998. He ran once as a Republican and twice on the American Constitution Party ticket.

There were hints that some of what came off as showy-ness in Leonard’s objection to the PERA divestment bill and his dramatic move to call a COW amendment may have been tied to inexperience.

“He’s obviously very passionate about the issue, but I’m not sure he understood the gravity of what he did,” Moreno told The Statesman. “I suspect he didn’t understand that it’s very uncommon to run a cow amendment on something that has wide support.

“I know he wasn’t going to be here on Friday for the third reading, so I think he just wanted to voice his opposition in a recorded vote,” Moreno said. He added that Leonard likely didn’t understand that in the language of the Legislature he was making a fairly strident statement.

A COW amendment is like asking for a do-over because you think the vote was mis-tabulated, Moreno explained, but this vote wasn’t mis-tabulated.

Leonard told The Statesman he was motivated to act on this bill only because it stood out to him.

“So many bills are health and human services and the like, but this one was about foreign affairs.”

“Look,” he said, “I take seriously what George Washington said. He advised us against involving our country in foreign entanglements, let alone a state in our country. There’s no upside to this.”

Leonard said that the only point he intended to make Thursday was exactly the point he articulated on the House floor. He said he isn’t anti-Israel and that he wasn’t trying to out-conservative his colleagues.

“I can’t answer for any other hypothetical interpretations,” he said.

— john@coloradostatesman.com