July 27, 2007 06:10 PM UTC

As Romanoff is to Sudan...

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• by: Colorado Pols

So the GOP is to Iran, at least when it comes to divestiture of state money, as the Colorado Springs Gazette reports:

Now playing at the Capitol: “Divestiture Wars.”

Two days after House Speaker Andrew Romanoff announced that he would lobby China to stop funding businesses and weapons in the Sudan, two Republican legislators announced plans to try to sell off any state pension fund investments in Iran.

Sen. Josh Penry of Fruita and Rep. Frank McNulty of Highlands Ranch notified the Public Employees Retirement Association of their plans in a letter last month. On Thursday, they said they will introduce a bill next session that would require the divestiture.

“Colorado’s public pensions have no business doing business in Iran,” Penry said in a news release. “As long as Iranian IEDs are killing American soldiers and as long as (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad makes nuclear proliferation and the elimination of Israel a centerpiece of his foreign policy, PERA should park its investments somewhere else.”

It’s our understanding that American investment in Iran was blocked by federal law in 1995 (by President Clinton), so this seems kind of pointless. But whatever helps them glom a piece of Andrew Romanoff’s humanitarian shine, right?