A panel of House lawmakers on Monday night overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would repeal a 2016 law requiring the state pension plan to sell off investments in companies that boycott Israel.

Sponsored by Rep. Elisabeth Epps, D-Denver, House Bill 1169 failed on a 1-10 vote in the House Finance Committee. Only Rep. Lorena Garcia, D-Adams County, voted in favor of the measure, while seven Democrats, including the chair and vice-chair, voted against it. 

The measure deals with a 2016 law that required the Public Employee’s Retirement Association, or PERA, the state’s pension plan, to identify companies that have economic prohibitions against Israel, and divest, or sell off, their investments in those companies.

Just one company was identified between 2016 and 2023 — the Danish bank Danske. PERA divested from the company in 2018. Several other states  have also taken similar actions. The company denies the allegation that it is boycotting Israel.

Epps’ bill is part of what’s known as BDS: “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions,” a movement intended to show support for Palestinians. Epps has garnered criticism from her fellow lawmakers, including House Speaker Julie McCluskie, for joining pro-Palestinian protesters in the House gallery during a special session in November, in which she shut down the House for about an hour and shouted at House lawmakers.

It costs PERA about $10,000 per year to obtain the list of companies, which is maintained by an outside organization.

More than 100 people signed up to testify on the bill. Additional security from the state patrol was on hand at the Capitol for the hearing.

Epps told the House Finance Committee that no bill she has run has generated the vitriol that HB 1169 has.

“I feel pretty confident in predicting that you’ll hear this evening that this bill is about whether or not what is happening in Palestine is or is not genocide,” she said. “You’ll hear some contentions about the bill being perhaps about ethnic cleansing or occupation or antisemitism or Islamophobia.”

But the measure, she insisted, is about PERA and a “fundamental, deeply unjust inequity about the nature of the legislation that was passed in 2016.” 

Passing HB 1169 and repealing the 2016 legislation doesn’t put Colorado in a position where the state is boycotting anything, but it repeals a prohibition on doing business with companies that divest, she said.

She added that the state should not have a law on the books that treats one nation in a protective economic way.

A representative from PERA said the agency opposed the 2016 measure because it opposes divestment of any kind. PERA did not take a position on Epps’ bill.

During the 6-hour hearing, which wrapped just before 11:30 p.m., several PERA members criticized the 2016 divestment legislation and called for support of HB 1169.

Nancy Faye, a PERA member, said she is appalled that her pension funds “supports” Israel. Pension funds should be invested in the interest of retirees, not to support members’ favorite companies or punish other companies, which she called the height of “chutzpah.” Boycott campaigns, such as BDS, are legal, effective, and nonviolent, she added.

Laws like the PERA divestment law “have the odious effect of shielding the Israeli government from criticism and accountability, and ultimately endorsing its genocidal war in Gaza, along with its ongoing regime of occupation and apartheid,” added Carson Bryant.

Those opposed to HB 1169 cited what they claim is a history of antisemitism and discrimination against Jewish people by those in the BDS movement.

Tamir Goldstein of the Anti-Defamation League said the goals of the BDS movement are to reject or ignore the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and to “seek the eradication of the Jewish state in addition to opposing the existence of the state of Israel.”

The “dangerous rhetoric” of the BDS movement “moves far beyond criticism of Israel’s actions and policies and has at times effectively resulted in a litmus test requiring Jewish individuals to renounce Israel in order to join certain social justice movements,” he said.

That results in isolation and intimidation of Jews and supporters of Israel, and “frequently creates an environment in which anti-Jewish actions and expressions are emboldened, making Jewish Coloradans feel unsafe,” he added.

In a statement after the hearing, Dawn Renfield, representing Stop Antisemitism Colorado, said that debate on this bill had nothing to do with PERA’s fiscal policy and was an attempt to create a platform for hate to spread.

“This bill was about the BDS movement, which seeks to delegitimize the state of Israel and turn the world against it,” she said.