The word "special" certainly has special meaning in our national vernacular:
Special. [spesh-uhl] adj. (a) having less mental, physical or emotional acuity than that generally found in people, applied not because it's accurate but because we don't want to be mean. (b) someone who might be getting something they don't deserve.
In other words, "special interests" don't apply to any old lobby. They just apply to lobbies that don't cater to the business elite. But, of course, they don't say "poor peoples' lobby" or "battered women's lobby" or "underrepresented racial minority lobby." While accurate, these labels imply that their members' hearts are good and deserving.
"Special interests," lobby, though... that appelation incites the following question: "what makes those people so special that they get special treatment?" And we know Americans; they'd rather shoot themselves in the foot rather than see just one person get something she might not deserve.
The same, of course, applies when it comes to "special interest" shareholders. At least according to the Biz Rountable, in the brief they filed in the action they brought challenging the SEC's new sharholder proxy access rule.
Petitioners brief essentially asserts that access will be usurped by "special interest shareholders" who will -- those villains! -- exert their shareholder franchise in a manner that does not strive to maximize shareholder value at any cost. Just like "special interests" steal our tax dollars and corrupt our politicians.
And, of course, the purpose of corporations is (who could question this dogma???) to maximize shareholder value. How very embarassing for us academics and activists and respected Delaware jurists who urge otherwise.
In particular, the Biz roundtable's brief seems especially bent out of shape when it comes to union pension funds usurping corporate boardrooms with their destructive "special interest" concerns. How dare they, um, make corporate management deal with labor issues. It's not like corporate leadership should have to bother about how the corporation treats their workers. Insane!!!!
Regardless, the folks at Race to the Bottom point out, citing the amicus brief filed by the CII, TIAA-CREF and other funds, it's all much ado about nothing:
So those "special intersts" aren't as powerful as the Biz Rountable would make them out. Sound familiar? Just like the special interests lobbies, who try to represent the underrepresented, are supposed to be walking away with all the goodies in Washington -- but aren't. Who is? Guess. Obama just made one of them his chief of staff.the “special-interest” shareholder petitioners purport to fear is a phantom. They offer no credible evidence to support their erroneous assertion that the actions of “state government and labor union[]” investors often “appear to be driven by concerns other than a desire to increase” shareholder value. They offer no evidence that such “parochial” investors have burdened corporations with unreasonable demands in countries with proxy access. And the one anecdote cited by petitioners undermines their claim. They do not assert that the Safeway “vote-no” campaign participants would have met the Rule’s 3%-ownership-for-3-years requirement. To the contrary, the participating funds there “collectively h[e]ld about 7 million of Safeway’s 445 million outstanding shares”—or only 1.6%. Petitioners’ own example thus proves the Rule’s efficacy. And if there were outlier abuses, the across-the-board benefit to shareholders of greater director responsiveness abundantly justifies any minimal outlier costs.
They're getting David and Goliath mixed up again.
