From The Race to the Bottom, on the business roundtable brief regarding the new SEC proxy access rule:
Petitioners also assert that another cost omitted by the SEC was the intended use of access as leverage by unions and public pension plans to gain unique benefits unrelated to their interests as shareholders. According to the Brief, "union and government pension funds are the most activist shareholders and would impose costs by, among other things, using Rule 14a-11 as leverage to obtain concessions from the company not related to shareholder value."So, corporations can say anything they want -- and spend all the money they want -- on any topic in politics... but their investors can only talk about shareholder value.
Theoretically, apologists for Citizens United would say, real peoples' speech is corporate speech -- just, well, amalgamated. But when those real people want to say something about something they find important other than stock price, they're supposed to shut their traps.
Cute.
