Clout, Conflicts and Controversies: Everything about CalPERS is BIG

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Even before Arnold blew into town, Sacramento had a successful tough-guy act.  It’s called the California Public Employees’ Retirement System — CalPERS to one and all — and its been in more fights than Conan the Barbarian and the Terminator combined.

By Art Detman

Right now, CalPERS is duking it out with Emerson Electric, Maytag, Royal/Dutch Shell and the Walt Disney Company; HMO giants Anthem and WellPoint; the New York Stock Exchange; and 34 California hospitals, including four in greater Sacramento — and that’s just the short list.             

     More than a dozen other scraps are underway, as is a challenge over auditor independence to the boards of 90 percent of U.S. companies, an issue over which CalPERS is now having second thoughts.  Last year the profesional staff of the pension fund was itching to take on Silicon Valley over stock options, but the CalPERS’ board of administration, perhaps sensing this could be the nastiest brawl of all, demurred.            

     Despite its bellicosity, CalPERS is the capital’s model corporate citizen.  Its headquarters on P Street is an unobtrusive structure that occupies nearly two city blocks.  To the distress of broadcast news camera crews, the monument sign out front says “Lincoln Plaza,” in honor of a public school that once stood on the site.  Within, the furnishings are first-class, the noise level hardly more than a whisper, and the featured attraction is a five-story landscaped central atrium.

Bigger Than Mother

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