Coalition Lines Up Against Decision on Campaign Spending

Investors and shareholder organizations have formed a coalition in response to the Supreme Court decision that opened the door to corporate spending on political campaigns.

Posted by Matthew Keenan at February 5, 2010 at 15:25 PM

Investors and shareholder organizations have formed a coalition in response to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which opened the door to corporate spending on political campaigns. The effort, led by ShareOwners.org, the Center for Political Accountability and New York City Public Advocate Bill deBlasio, includes engagement of management at public companies and outreach to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress.

"Shareholders should demand that corporations put their interests ahead of political interests,'' said de Blasio, a trustee of the New York City Employees' Retirement System. "Investors can suffer when corporations can spend millions of dollars on elections with no disclosure and no limits. We need to rally shareholders nationwide to demand that the corporations they invest in are transparent and accountable for their campaign spending."

Robert A.G. Monks, shareholder advocate and founder of Lens Governance Advisors, said: "[T]he good news is that the Supreme Court of the United States has held that there is such a thing as corporate democracy. Now is the time for shareholders to put that democracy to work to protect their own interests against boards that may want to 'play politics.'"