The US Supreme Court’s wrongheaded decision on corporate campaign contributions raises the specter of billions of corporate dollars flooding the electoral process. But the core issue goes beyond campaign financing. It’s time to restore corporate sanity, as I wrote in The Guardian. From spending millions on lobbyists to paying eight-figure bonuses to self-proclaimed masters of the financial universe that collapsed the global economy, corporations have gone crazy. The problem is simple – shareholders that own companies have lost their rightful power to supervise the executives who manage them, so can’t prevent them from acting recklessly and spending investors’ money foolishly; the inmates are running the asylum. The solution is also simple – fair corporate elections that give investors a legitimate chance to elect boards of directors that will, as the law requires, protect shareholders’ investments. Until corporations fix their own elections, they shouldn’t meddle in others.
Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is author of Hong Kong On Air
Tags: 2008 financial crisis, corporate campaign contributions, corporate elections, corporate governance, Hong Kong, Hong Kong On Air, investor rights, proxy voting, shareholder rights, The Guardian, US campaign finance, US Supreme Court, US Supreme Court decisions
Muhammad Cohen 
February 5, 2010 at 9:23 pm |
I think the referenced was one of Ms. Marcus’ best columns–particularly well researched. I would like to see more of the spotlight placed on the author of the offending decision, the so-called “swing vote”, Mr. Justice Kennedy. We already know the nature of the other four (I will restrain myself.)
I wonder how the corporate CEO’s will look at this Supreme Court edict. They may not be all that thrilled with having incumbents stick their hands out to them and asking for help. Not that they can contribute directly, or will be asked for direct handouts. But still.
Rather than trying to fix corporations (I know how individual shareholders, as opposed to institutional ones, rate in their thinking; it’s not high and never will be), I suggest an effort to clean up financing of Federal elections and judiciary elections. There is nothing in the world for which more money is spent so ineffectively as American elections.