We hope that the below article in Fortune magazine, focusing on a political disclosure resolution we filed with Wellpoint, portends a strong shareholder mandate for increased accountability at the Annual General Meeting next week:
Press
It’s worrying to think that shareholder democracy is needed to rectify shortcomings of the real thing. Yet this week two of the nation’s biggest corporations will give their investors precisely that opportunity. Motions on the ballots at the annual meetings of Bank of America and 3M will effectively act as referendums on the U.S. Supreme Court’s flawed decision in the Citizens United case to effectively hand companies the same freedoms of speech accorded to people. Happily, supporting proposals to restrict the use of corporate money in politics isn’t just good for democracy, it is good business.
By Rob Cox
This column appears in the May 14 issue of Newsweek.
Yesterday we got a piece of good news. Fed up with corporations secretly meddling in their public affairs, a record number of patriotic Americans have sent the SEC a resounding message that the time has come to reign in corporate influence peddling.
With corporate political spending at the top of the agenda this proxy season and a consumer boycott of the American Legislative Exchange Council underway, Mark Schmitt of The New Republic provides an enlightening explanation of how and why companies participate in politics the way they do. Corporate executives want to buy confidential access to policy makers. Investors on the other hand, need transparency to understand the risks of corporate political giving.
John Harrington and close to 100 upper income professionals held a rally on the steps of San Francisco City Hall calling on the government to raise their taxes. The rally was called to focus attention on congresses’ fiscal irresponsibility by failing to raise tax rates for the wealthiest Americans.
The Formula One race in Bahrain is underway, despite serious ongoing human right violations in the country. Bahrain has imprisoned a number of political prisoners including internationally regarded human rights advocate, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. Al-Khawaja is on a month-long hunger strike so there are legitimate fears that his life is in grave danger.
A group of NGO’s have asked Formula One and the various race sponsors — including a number of publicly traded U.S. companies — to respond to Bahrain’s human rights violations. The responses have been disappointing.
Jack Ucciferri, Harrington Investments’ Research and Advocacy Director, was asked by Reuters to comment on the recent compensation package awarded to Goldman Sach’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein. According to the SEC, Blankfein’s total compensation for 2011 was $16.5 million, although Goldman Sach’s claims he only received $12 million for his performance last year.
Harrington Investments is proud to support SB 982, the California Shareholder Protection Act. Sponsored by Senator Evans, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and supported by the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG), this bill would provide transparency so that shareholders and consumers be better informed on the political activities of the corporations that they support.
By John Harrington
Op-ed: Special to the Napa Valley Register
Large publicly traded corporations are poised to dominate our political system by flooding campaigns and politicians with money to buy special favors in Washington. At the very least, shareholders, as the legal owners of corporations, stakeholders and the investing public, should know how much corporate management is spending to elect politicians to represent them in Congress and as President of the United States.
Napa CA – Harrington Investments, Inc. (HII), a Napa, California-based Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) is supporting a petition before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and joining investment colleagues and civil society organizations in demanding that the agency adopt a rule to require corporations to publicly disclose with the SEC all contributions to politicians and political campaigns.
