Griffin: ‘Retirement fund managers should be focused on growing your retirement by investing in companies that are doing well, not whether a company is pursuing a progressive agenda’

LITTLE ROCK – Following his filing of a multistate lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Labor, Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement:

“I recently joined with other attorneys general to block a Biden administration regulation that would allow retirement savings managers to make investment decisions based on progressive social activism. That regulation is unlawful because Congress has not authorized it, and we’re asking the court to immediately block it. Retirement fund managers should be focused on growing your retirement by investing in companies that are doing well, not whether a company is pursuing a progressive agenda.”

To read the full lawsuit, click here.

About the Biden Administration’s Regulation

The Biden administration’s rule changes existing policy from the Department of Labor that requires retirement plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to evaluate investments based on financial factors, rather than social policy. Instead of focusing on investor return, as ERISA requires, the rule gives financial advisers license to consider ESG factors including climate change, board composition, and diversity. A coalition of state attorneys general is suing to protect retirement plans from these progressive policies. To read the Biden administration’s rule, click here.

About Attorney General Tim Griffin

Tim Griffin was elected Attorney General of Arkansas on November 8, 2022. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas on November 4, 2014, and was re-elected for his second four-year term on November 6, 2018. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th Representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District. For the 113th Congress, he was a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority. In the 112th Congress, he served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He also attended graduate school at Oxford University. Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps, for over 25 years and currently holds the rank of colonel. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault in Mosul, Iraq). He is currently serving as the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) for the 81st Readiness Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Prior to his current post, Griffin served as the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment (LOD) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and a senior legislative advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Colonel Griffin holds a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush. Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.

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