Why would 16 Democratic senators join their Republican colleagues in pushing a bill that lays out a rich banquet of goodies before some of America’s worst bankers, and increases the risk that taxpayers will have to bail them out?Here are 24 million reasons: These 16 Democrats have collectively received $24,488,961 in campaign contributions from savings and…
Category: Citizens United
Political Spending Disclosure Proposal to go Forward at Citigroup
Statement from ChangetoWin: In a critical first test of the its new guidance on shareholder proposals, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) denied Citigroup Inc.’s (NYSE: C) request to block shareholders from voting for more transparency on political spending. Citigroup tried to omit the proposal from this year’s ballot using a new interpretation of the…
Outrageous Attack on Political Spending Disclosure Proposal at Disney
It is not just the name of the group objecting to disclosure of political spending that is oxymoronic; it is the vocabulary they use in trying to explain that a proposal to require disclosure of political spending is somehow contrary to notions of free speech instead of the only way to preserve it. The “Free…
The Fight for Corporations To Reveal Political Spending | Brennan Center for Justice
Provided Congress allows, [the SEC] will determine the winner in the long-running battle over whether publicly traded companies should reveal their currently hidden political contributions, known as “dark money.” Stockholders have long been agitating that the companies they own improve the transparency of their political spending. This is often done through shareholder resolutions, which are a…
5050 Climate Project Report on Climate Change: Undisclosed Political Contributions, Lack of Board Oversight, Lack of Board Expertise
A new report out today from the 50/50 Climate Project finds that twenty-one of the largest energy and utility companies in the U.S. that have spent at least $670 million over six years to influence elections, regulators and lawmakers have limited board oversight of climate risk and political spending, and lack climate competent board members. These corporations face the…
Equifax Lobbied To Kill Rule Protecting Victims Of Data Breaches
As Equifax acknowledges a massive security breach making the names, addresses, social security numbers and more available for fraud and disruption and it appears executives, including the CFO, sold stock before making this information public, it also comes out that Equifax lobbied to make it more difficult for consumers to get damages for exactly this…
WSJ Nearly Gets it Right on Accountability to Shareholders for Political Expenditures
We can’t argue with this part: The fiduciary responsibility of a CEO is to safeguard the company’s assets and acknowledge this overriding principle: “It’s not our money but that of the shareholders.” And we agree that shareholders (they say small but we say all shareholders) should be allowed to sue corporate managers and boards for…
How Trump the populist became Trump the corporate shill – NY Daily News
Corporate America has captured the Trump administration. Public Citizen’s research has found that more than 70% of Trump’s picks for top sub-Cabinet jobs have clear corporate ties.In Trump’s Washington, the populism of the campaign has been overtaken by conventional corporate cronyism on a grand scale. After his famous pledge to “drain the swamp,” Trump issued…
High-powered CEOs at U.S.-India Business Council vote to split from U.S. Chamber – The Washington Post
The Washington Post reports that the Chamber of Commerce, Washington’s most powerful pro-corporate lobby, is having its own governance problems as some of its members are uncomfortable with the positions the Chamber is taking and one group is trying to break off. The board of the U.S.-India Business Council — whose membership includes the chief executives…
Time to have corporate America be honest about political spending | TheHill
In a political environment teeming with corporate giveaways, politicians’ reliance on huge donors to get and remain in power and a president steeped in potential conflicts of interest, it is more important than ever that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issue a rule requiring all public companies to disclose their political spending.Unfortunately, Republicans…
“Free Market” Shareholder Proposal on Lobbying Disclosure at Caterpillar
A shareholder proposal on disclosing of lobbying priorities from the right-wing National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project: At this week’s Caterpillar annual shareholder meeting, the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP) is asking company investors to support FEP’s shareholder resolution asking the heavy equipment manufacturer to report on…
IRRC Webinar on Corporate Political Spending at the State Level
On March 22, 2017 IRRC is hosting a webinar on its new report with shocking new information on the undisclosed corporate political expenditures at the state level: Join us to review the latest research from the IRRC Institute, “How Leading U.S. Corporations Govern and Spend on State Lobbying”, conducted by the Sustainable Investments Institute. Download…
