The SEC and Investor Suffrage

Floyd Norris has an article in today's New York Times about a proposed rule-making that the SEC just opened up comment on that "would make it easier for institutional shareholders to propose board candidates to be listed on the proxies that every public company sends to its shareholders." Norris worries about potential mischief that shareholders with ulterior motives could create if the rule-making goes through. But the lack of shareholder democracy is pretty egregious;  some kind of reform allowing shareholders to have a say in board elections seems in order.  

Below is a message we got a couple of days ago (after the SEC hearing on proxy access) from shareholder democracy proponent Jim McRitchie of CorpGov.net. We've been in touch with one of the other co-filers of the brief mentioned below, Glyn Holton of the Investor Suffrage Movement, and we hope to be covering this issue in the pages of Dollars & Sense very soon.  —cs

petition File 4-583

At the heart of any discussion about proxy voting is the humble shareholder ballot. In its simplest interpretation, the ballot is arguably the principal method by which a company's shareholders can, while remaining investors in the company, affect its governance, communicate preferences and signal confidence or lack of confidence in its management and oversight. The ballot is the shareholder's voice at the boardroom table. Shareholders can elect directors (and, in several jurisdictions, have the right to remove them), register approval of transactions, supply advisory opinions and (increasingly) authorize executive pay packages, all through the medium of the ballot. It is one of the most basic and important tools in the shareholder's toolbox... Safeguarding the intention of a voting instruction is of paramount importance to system integrity.
CorpGov.net

• John Chevedden, Rule 14a-8 proposal proponent since 1996
  
• Glyn Holton, Executive Director, United States Proxy Exchange
  
• Mark Latham, Ph.D., VoterMedia.org
  
• Eric M. Jackson, Ph.D., Managing Member, Ironfire Capital LLC
  
• James P. Hawley, Ph.D., Professor and Co-Director, Elfenworks Center for the Study of Fiduciary Capitalism, Saint Mary's College of California
  
• Andrew Williams, Ph.D., Professor and Co-Director, Elfenworks Center for the Study of Fiduciary Capitalism, Saint Mary's College of California
  
• Andrew Eggers, President, Proxy Democracy
  
• Bradley Coleman and Erez Maharshak, Proxy Democracy