An editorial in the WSJ:
It’s corporate proxy season, which can only mean more political pressure on companies to stop spending money on politics. This year the plan of Big Labor and the George Soros-funded Center for Political Accountability is pressuring business to disclose all spending related to politics as well as to lobby the Securities and Exchange Commission to force companies to do so.
According to the proxy preview report by liberal umbrella group As You Sow, some 125 shareholder proposals on corporate political spending or lobbying will be offered this year, with the greatest number aimed at lobbying. For 2013, 51 lobbying resolutions have been filed, an increase from 40 filings last year and six in 2011.
Among the leading filers are social investing funds and labor unions like Afscme and the AFL-CIO, which want to silence business voices so they can dominate politics even more than they do now. The unions pick targets they think might bend, or at least win some publicity for the cause, and this year they’ve aimed lobbying proposals at Cigna, Abbott Labs, ABT -0.08% Verizon and Union Pacific.
