Arizona’s Anti-BDS Treasurer

Kimberly Yee
Arizona State Treasurer

Arizona’s Anti-BDS Treasurer

As Arizona’s Treasurer, Kimberly Yee safeguards roughly $30 billion in assets and is the steward of Arizona’s $63 billion state budget. During her term, Treasurer Yee has conservatively managed the state’s assets while generating impressive investment returns.

Kimberly Yee is a staunch and effective foe of the BDS campaign against Israel. She divested Arizona’s $143 million investment in Unilever when Ben & Jerry’s, its subsidiary, severed its ice cream sales in Judea and Samaria. Ms. Yee placed Morningstar on Arizona’s list of prohibitive investments due to that company’s subsidiary, Sustainalytics, using antisemitic sources to negatively rate companies transacting business in Israel. Under her watch, Arizona’s investments in Israel bonds surged three-fold.

The following are among the other issues discussed during this dynamic exchange with Treasurer Yee:

What are the sources of inflows and outflows of the assets that fall under Arizona’s Treasurer’s management?
Why did Treasurer Yee stand at the forefront of implementing programs in schools to teach students how to manage money?
Why is the ESG movement detrimental to Arizona’s taxpayers and returns on assets under management?
What can Arizona’s treasurer do to thwart institutions that deprive access of right-of-center and religious citizens to the financial system?
What is Kimberly Yee’s stance on Joe Binden’s plan to forgive student loans?
How can Treasurer Yee help protect Arizona’s citizens from the huge surge in IRS agents?
What policies does Treasurer Yee support to mitigate the rapacious inflation crushing Arizona’s families?

The Honorable Kimberly Yee, Arizona State Treasurer

Kimberly Yee is a graduate of Pepperdine University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a bachelor’s degree in English. She also holds a master’s degree in public administration from Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs.

She was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives for the 10th legislative district from 2011 to 2013 and the Arizona Senate for the 20th legislative district from 2013 until 2019. She was elected as Arizona’s Treasurer on November 6, 2018.

TOPIC:

Investing, Legal

INDUSTRY:

Other

AFFILIATION:

Arizona State Treasurer

TODAY’S GUEST:

The Honorable Kimberly Yee:

SHOW NOTES:

00:00:59 – I was the first treasurer to do so in our history, ensuring that we have strong relationships …

Arizona treasurer is a statewide constitutional office holder, and I am the chief investment and banking officer of the state of Arizona.

It’s a term of four years with a total of two terms, and that is a responsible position for holding all investments of the state agencies. $63 billion runs in and out of the cash flow throughout my office of the treasury, and that goes to disbursements to state agencies, local government, school districts, and tribal nations.

It’s a very important position to ensure smart and safe investments, not only for these entities, but we also voluntarily invest funds for our local governments, which are cities and towns. And I have made it a commitment as the Treasurer these last three and a half years to visit all 15 counties in Arizona.

I was the first treasurer to do so in our history, ensuring that we have strong relationships with those leaders so that we can best invest their funds day to day.

00:09:48 – And so being able to provide a lower tax system overall across the state is going to be smart.

I’ve always been an advocate for lower taxes and really allowing for our economy to blossom with those who work and those who are actually creating that economy need to be able to stay open.

And as we have seen with this pandemic and those businesses, especially mom-and-pop, smaller businesses, have really struggled over these last couple of years to keep their doors open.

And so being able to provide a lower tax system overall across the state is going to be smart going into the future.

00:28:23 – Our earnings and distributions in the time I have been state treasure have gone to $2 billion.

We have an internal investment team. And our role is really like the state’s banker. So we distribute funds as they are brought into the state. We’re not the receiving agency. That is the Department of Revenue.

So the Department of Revenue in Arizona collects those funds as they come in from sales receipts and others. But we receive the money just like a bank would, and we invest those funds internally with our investment team.

To give you an example, our earnings and distributions in the time I have been state treasure have gone to $2 billion.

So again, when someone has those funds come in, we don’t sit on that cash. We actually invest it wisely so that more money is earned for the taxpayer, and then we roll those distributions out.

00:34:47 – On our Arizona treasury website, we have free resources for children and for schools, families to use if they would like some guidance.

So finally we passed a law in 2019, in my first six months in office, that requires high schoolers to have at least one semester of financial education before they graduate from high school to be equipped with those basic core skills of money management.

We don’t require a particular curriculum because we have a very locally controlled school system in Arizona. So those local governing boards, the local schools, can decide what curriculum to use.

But on our Arizona treasury website, we have free resources for children and for schools, families to use if they would like some guidance. But again, nothing is required in terms of curriculum.

We allow those decisions to be made at every local level. But the important thing is that they are now teaching it as a requiremen

00:40:16 – In the energy sector, one of the things that we do is we do banking services across the state.

Americans should stand for American companies. So when we saw that the Russian and Ukraine situation was happening.

We gave a letter to those who we do business with that indicated that we need to focus on American oil companies and ensure that we stand up for American based corporations in the energy sector and if they were going to do business with those who are in Russia.

We don’t want to do business with you because we really need to stand up again for our very hard-working American corporations. Especially in sectors that these woke agendas are going against.

In the energy sector, one of the things that we do is we do banking services across the state. So we provide contracts to those financial institutions

00:48:46 – Israel is also a wonderful friend and ally of the great country of America, and so we value that relationship as well.

Well, a little bit of history in Arizona. We have had a long-standing trade relationship with Israel.

They are a great trading partner, if you look at the numbers, $677,000,000 in bilateral trade between the State of Arizona and the State of Israel. And I value that great partnership that we’ve had over the years. But Israel is also a wonderful friend and ally of the great country of America, and so we value that relationship as well.

So in 2016, Arizona passed a law that would fight against boycott divestment in sanctions, which is called an anti BDS law. And it basically said, any corporation that boycotts Israel shall not ever have financial business in the state of Arizona.

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