Shareholders to SEC: Expose corporate "dark money" in politics

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9oDPorGc8nJk_GlB7dZOsE6XLXnudoAdZd0AS3NwcSxvhiryvg0j0amMt-4ZuWG6jdsvAyD-6Mz5yQvaxGTLEnrNjSQNsnbXKwx-JYYsuB7GIGjyryBexVrk1sABmfKNqsnD-6VkjHGMT/s1600/expose-the-dark-money-final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9oDPorGc8nJk_GlB7dZOsE6XLXnudoAdZd0AS3NwcSxvhiryvg0j0amMt-4ZuWG6jdsvAyD-6Mz5yQvaxGTLEnrNjSQNsnbXKwx-JYYsuB7GIGjyryBexVrk1sABmfKNqsnD-6VkjHGMT/s200/expose-the-dark-money-final.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Wouldn't it be nice to know how much of your money is being spent to elect anti-worker politicians to office?<br /><br />If you have any retirement savings, you probably own stock in a public corporation. And the CEOs of those corporations can spend your money however they wish on politics -- without telling you.<br /><br />Since the Supreme Court's 2010 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission">Citizens United decision</a>, corporations have been pouring millions of dollars into shadowy groups to influence elections. In the 2012 election, up to $400 million was funneled into these "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money">dark money</a>" groups -- that's 500 percent more than in the previous presidential election before Citizens United.<br /><br />More often than not, that corporate money is being spent to elect anti-worker candidates to public office.<br /><br />A <a href="http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/06/17/the-sec-and-dark-political-money/" rel="nofollow">new SEC rule being considered</a> would require publicly traded companies to disclose to shareholders the corporate funds spent on political campaigns.<br /><br />Supporters of the new rule, led by <a href="http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=183">Public Citizen</a>, held an event in Washington yesterday where Sen. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren" rel="nofollow">Elizabeth Warren</a> (D-Mass.) <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/elizabeth-warren-corporate-disclosure_n_4179098.html?utm_hp_ref=politics" rel="nofollow">urged the SEC to shine a light on the "dark money"</a> spent by corporations:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">We don't have to have legislation for the SEC to do the right thing. They have the power to do the right thing right now. There is no reason for saying a corporation wants to be able to spend shareholders' money and not tell shareholders how that money is being spent.</blockquote>Advocates for transparency in corporate political spending are also supporting the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s824">Shareholder Protection Act</a>, legislation introduced by Sen. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Menendez" rel="nofollow">Robert Menendez</a> (D-N.J.) to force the SEC to enact a political disclosure rule. Menendez was also at yesterday's event and said the SEC does not need the legislation to write the new rule now.<br /><br /><div> Law professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy wrote in the <em><a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-torres-corporate-funding-politics-20131030,0,5258845.story#axzz2j8kHEJIQ" rel="nofollow">Los Angeles Times</a></em>:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">There is no rule at the SEC that requires public companies to tell their shareholders what they are up to in partisan elections. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">If the law of the land allows corporations to spend unlimited money on politics, investors deserve to know when, why and how much.</blockquote><div></div><div>As the <a href="http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/10/29/sec-poised-to-improve-political-spending-transparency/" rel="nofollow">Sunlight Foundation observes</a>, the recent government shutdown was just one symptom of the dysfunction sewn by the dark money infecting DC -- all in the interests of right-wing fanatics and their corporate sponsors: </div><blockquote class="tr_bq">Not all that ails our democracy can be blamed on the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, but $1.2 billion in spending by outside groups—at least $300 million of that from undisclosed donors—doesn’t help create a working democracy.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Legislation such as the <a href="http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/02/09/house-democrats-introduce-disclose-2012/">DISCLOSE</a> Act is still the best chance at comprehensive disclosure of all dark money. But an SEC rule will result in greater accountability by companies that decide to spend money on politics, it will inform investors about how a company spends its profits, and it will help the public identify the messenger behind many of the political ads they see.</blockquote><div>A new SEC rule wouldn't solve all of our problems. It probably won't even reduce corporate political spending all that much. But it would be a nice change from the secrecy that shrouds political spending. </div><div></div><div>And it will give us a chance to hold CEOs accountable when they spend money on politicians who attack working people.</div>

Citizens United dark money SEC Sen. Elizabeth Warren Shareholders to SEC: Expose corporate "dark money" in politics

Wouldn't it be nice to know how much of your money is being spent to elect anti-worker politicians to office?If you have any retirement savings, you probably own stock in a public corporation. And the CEOs of those corporations can spend your money h…

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SEC, finally, does something about insane CEO pay

You know something's out of whack when <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/McKesson-CEO-jaw-dropping-pay.html">McKesson CEO John Hammergren rakes in $51.7 million </a>even though the company has paid nearly a $1 billion to settle Medicaid and other fraud claims on his watch. While he’s entitled to a $159 million pension, other McKesson workers can’t even afford to participate in their 401 (k) or buy into the company’s healthcare plan.<br /><br />On $13 an hour, Randolph Santiago, a material handler at McKesson's Lakeland, Fla., facility, can't come up with $160 a month for individual health coverage, let alone the higher cost of a family plan. His wife is on SSI after being diagnosed with clinical depression. His two daughters need braces, but at $8,500, they're beyond him.<br /><br />Hammergren makes 847 times the average worker at McKesson -- if you include his stock options and pension. That's so much that <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/McKesson-CEO-jaw-dropping-pay.html" rel="nofollow">he receives an extra $17,000 for a financial planner</a> just to count all his money.<br /><br />It's time to do something about the growing gap between the one percenters at the top of corporations and the 99 percent who work for them. Fortunately, the Securities and Exchange Commission is doing something.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/18/us-usa-sec-ceopay-munis-idUSBRE98H0EX20130918" rel="nofollow">SEC today proposed a rule</a> requiring corporations to reveal the ratio between their CEO and median worker compensation. As one commissioner complained, the reason for doing it is to shame CEOs. (He thinks there's something wrong with that.)<br /><br />Congress passed a law in July 2010 that requires companies to disclose the gap between CEO and worker pay. Expect corporations to fight back. It’s not just the general public who’s fed up, investors care too. In fact, Hammergren’s compensation package received a stunning 78 percent rejection by shareholders at McKesson’s annual meeting this year.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.teamster.org/content/teamsters-praise-sec-proposed-rule-corporate-pay" rel="nofollow">Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa, in a statement, praised</a> the SEC:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">CEO pay keeps going up and worker pay keeps going down. This is a dirty secret that corporate CEOs don’t want exposed, and the SEC did the right thing by proposing this rule.</blockquote>The <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.ips-dc.org/">Institute for Policy Studies</a> reports:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Expert observers of the corporate compensation scene have been calling for action around CEO-worker pay ratios ever since Peter Drucker, the founder of modern management science, called for a 25-to-1 ratio between top management and worker pay in <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJ_Drucker_execpay.pdf">a 1977 Wall Street Journal op-ed</a>.<br /><br />Back at that time pay ratios of 50- and 100-to-1 struck the American public — and experts like Drucker — as totally unjustifiable. Ratios that wide, Drucker wrote, endanger the great business achievement of the 20th century, “the steady narrowing of the income gap between the ‘big boss’ and the ‘working man.'”<br /><br />That achievement has now gone completely by the boards. Over recent decades, the CEO-worker pay gap has soared. Major corporate CEOs last year took in <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-You">354 times more</a> compensation than average American workers, double the gap in the early 1990s. A Bloomberg News survey this past spring found that CEOs at eight major U.S. corporations <a href="https://teamster.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://go.bloomberg.com/multimedia/ceo-pay-ratio/">were making over 1,000 times</a> the average pay of workers in their industry.</blockquote>The IPS says pay ratio disclosure could be a game-changer in the struggle against insane executive compensation.<br /><br />Let's hope.<br /><br />

CEO Pay McKesson SEC SEC, finally, does something about insane CEO pay

You know something's out of whack when McKesson CEO John Hammergren rakes in $51.7 million even though the company has paid nearly a $1 billion to settle Medicaid and other fraud claims on his watch. While he’s entitled to a $159 million pension, o…

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