Washington, D.C. ? Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas will put hundreds of thousands of his family’s dollars where his mouth is when it comes to divestment from Sudan.

Brownback, a Republican who is contemplating a 2008 presidential bid, wrote last week to 44 state governors urging them to divest from state pension fund investments in companies that do business with Sudan, whose government is sponsoring genocide in the country’s Darfur region. Six other states already have done so.

The family began divesting its holdings earlier this month, when Brownback became interested in divestment as a tool to pressure the Khartoum regime, said Brian Hart, a spokesman for Brownback.

An estimated 400,000 have been killed in Darfur, and 2.2 million more displaced, since 2003.

The Brownback family has at least $186,000 and possibly as much as $565,000 in 10 mutual funds whose investments include companies identified by divestment activists as doing business with the Sudanese government, his most recent personal financial disclosure statement showed.