County investment portfolios are for maximizing returns for taxpayers, not taking political stances, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in an advisory opinion released Friday.
While not binding, the opinion acts as formal legal advice to Lucas County Prosecuting Attorney Julia Bates, who asked whether the county can lawfully halt further investments in Israel at year’s end.
Lucas County’s $5 million in bonds in Israeli debt mature at the end of 2026, and some county officials and locals have pushed for divestment in light of Israel’s invasion and occupation of Palestine and what critics, including several nation-states and a United Nations commission, have alleged to be a genocide – a charge Israel denies.
The Lucas County Investment Advisory Committee, a panel of officials that counsels the county treasurer, briefly considered immediate divestment (which would incur a financial penalty) before ditching the idea in lieu of penalty-free divestment at maturity.
Yost’s opinion relies in part on a newly amended state law, enacted last year within the thousands of pages of Ohio’s operating budget, that says county investment decisions can’t be motivated by influencing “any environmental, social, personal or ideological policy.”
This means county officials can’t consider “non-economic factors,” like foreign policy or accusations of war crimes when making investment decisions, the opinion states. Instead, they should consider only risk, liquidity, portfolio diversity and other “bona fide economic” rationales.
To do otherwise would expose treasurers to civil liability for violating legal duties as a fiduciary.
“If the investment advisory committee’s policy runs counter to these conditions in law, the treasurer is not bound to follow it,” Yost wrote.
The commentary echoes a Republican backlash against what’s known as ESG investing – i.e. tapping the muscle of institutional investors to try to levy environmental, social or governmental changes.
County may still divest from Israel for economic reasons, not politics
The opinion leaves some room for Lucas County to divest at year’s end, so long as the decision is motivated by economics and not politics.
The county’s Israel investments came to a head in August of 2025 when Pete Gerken, a Lucas County commissioner, moved a committee that advises the county treasurer to halt all future county investments in foreign debt. The $5 million invested amounted to 1% of the county’s portfolio.
While the motion is agnostic in that it doesn’t specify any given country, the motion came after a tense meeting focused squarely on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“Given the past two years’ actions by the Israeli government that is now engaged in a full-blown genocide, starvation tactics by design, and policies of violence, oppression, and displacement … it is time; we have to talk about this,” Gerken said, per the Toledo Blade. “I cannot look away, I will not look away, and I don’t want this board to look away. This is where our money is going, and even though it’s a penny or two in our investment, it’s still the idea our money is being invested in.”
In an interview with Signal Statewide on Monday, Gerken said he took on the proposal to lend voice to the sizable and historical Middle Eastern – specifically Lebanese and Palestinian – communities in Lucas County who were concerned about their tax dollars flowing to a country they saw as a violent enemy.
He said he’s not giving up just yet. There’s a chance the war and instability in the Middle East may have damaged Israel’s bond ratings enough to offer an economic rationale for divestment. But if not, he said the county is exploring legal options to stress test Yost’s opinion.
In any event, he said an investment in Israel is just as political as a divestment.
“Money and politics are intertwined at every level,” Gerken said. “They probably wouldn’t let us invest with the Chinese or Iranian government right now.”
Signal Statewide reached out to the county Investment Advisory Committee for comment.