Public Sector Inc. is hard at work, this time infiltrating America's boardrooms to try and muzzle the free speech of American business. Following the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling, American businesses had their First Amendment rights restored, allowing them to directly voice political speech. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, public labor unions and their allies have since been on a crusade to muzzle such speech, specifically by inundating shareholder meetings with frivolous shareholder proposals aimed at quashing corporate political spending.
The opportunity to offer a shareholder proposal has historically been little used, except by major stakeholders, but technically is open to anyone with $2000 or more in company stock. Just like frivolous lawsuits, this process of flooding shareholder meetings with proposals is intended to harass business and stymie free speech. Citing research by the Manhattan Institute's Proxy Monitor, the Wall Street Journal reports that a whopping 92% of such proposals have been sponsored by public labor union pension funds and their natural allies in the social investment space. Just another example of how Public Sector Inc. is hard at work on behalf of the American taxpayer.
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