Long before Eliot Spitzer achieved national renown by attacking corporate misdeeds as New York's attorney general, there was the California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS. For years, CalPERS used the leverage of its enormous investment portfolio to rail against companies that it believed were badly run or acting irresponsibly. When the Enron debacle ushered in an era of scandals, CalPERS's leadership made it an instant star of the corporate-reform movement.
But the times may be changing. After a bruising annual-meeting season during which CalPERS wielded its $166 billion portfolio like a bludgeon, members of its board gathered in Lake Tahoe,...
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