Reuters
Florida's governor wants pension plans in conservative U.S. states to band together to fight shareholder initiatives on issues like climate change and diversity, but the idea may prove hard to pull off. With assets of over $5.7 trillion under management, U.S. state and local defined-benefit pension plans are a powerful shareholder force that can help activists pass or defeat ESG issues on corporate ballots by declaring how they will vote and giving momentum to reform efforts, or slowing them. But getting them to vote together as a bloc -- as DeSantis wants -- will be tricky, given Republican-controlled state retirement systems have voted differently on the same issue and have oversight structures that complicate efforts to influence their voting.