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Floyd Norris over at the NY Times recently wrote an interesting article about the lack of shareholder oversite regarding corporate political gift-giving (or, to use another term: bribes):

Few major companies now disclose what soft-dollar contributions they have made, or what contributions to politicians they have made in states where corporate contributions are legal.

Over at the non-partisan Center for Political Accountability, you can download reports in .pdf format that highlight "the contradictions between public companies' policies and practices compared to these same companies' political giving practices." This is a fascinating site that has reports, culled from public sources, on Altria, Bell South, Eli Lilly, SBC Communications, Union Pacific, and Verizon.

All this highlights the little-discussed issue of how publically traded companies exert the politcal will of individual CEOs and members of the board of directors, and ignore the political will of its owners, the shareholders.

As Floyd Norris writes, from that Times article:

Corporate contributions to politicians come in several flavors. Some reflect real partisan support -- preferences that may not be shared by all shareholders. Some are pushing a specific legislative proposal to help the company. And some come perilously close to shakedowns by politicians. Making companies explain their contributions to shareholders might help all of us to understand just why the money is flowing.

The fact that shareholders have not made this an issue is seen by this lame excuse of non-disclosure by Home Depot:

In a letter to Green Century Capital Management, a mutual fund manager that had asked for a disclosure policy to be established, an official of Home Depot that said a proposed requirement that the company's board approve contributions "would unnecessarily distract the board from other matters."

Hmmm...I wonder how "distracting" it was for the board to decide which political candidate to support??

Lame, lame, lame, lame....lame. It just reinforces how far this country has to go to get corporate money out of the political process. For instance, who on earth would know the following?

It is quite true that contributions are now usually disclosed by the recipient, but that does not mean they are easy to find. Morgan Stanley, for example, gave $25,000 to a candidate for state Supreme Court in Illinois. That race could easily be overlooked by a curious shareholder.

Attention shareholders: Wake up and take back control of the company that YOU own!

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