{"id":118672,"date":"2026-01-21T11:17:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/?post_type=news&p=118672"},"modified":"2026-01-21T11:17:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:17:53","slug":"trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Administration’s Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0On the 16th\u00a0anniversary of\u00a0the Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0disastrous\u00a0Citizens United<\/a>\u00a0decision\u00a0that unleashed unlimited election spending by big corporations,\u00a0a Public Citizen analysis has found\u00a0the Trump Administration\u00a0has\u00a0taken unprecedented\u00a0actions\u00a0to\u00a0prevent\u00a0shareholders from\u00a0being able to\u00a0hold companies accountable for their political spending decisions \u2013 something the Supreme Court\u00a0relied on in\u00a0Citizens United.\u00a0\u00a0In the\u00a0Citizens United\u00a0majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is, furthermore, little evidence of abuse that cannot\u00a0be corrected\u00a0by shareholders\u00a0\u2018through the procedures of corporate democracy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can\u00a0determine\u00a0whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits\u00a0\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Polling<\/a>\u00a0has shown that\u00a0the vast\u00a0majority of\u00a0Americans who\u00a0are invested\u00a0in the stock market as\u00a0corporate\u00a0shareholders\u00a0strongly\u00a0support increased transparency and accountability related to the political spending of publicly traded corporations.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0in the first year of the\u00a0second\u00a0Trump Administration, the Securities Exchange Commission\u00a0(SEC), under\u00a0Trump appointee\u00a0Chair Paul Atkins, acted\u00a0in unprecedented ways to\u00a0erect barriers to shareholders holding companies accountable for corporate political spending.\u00a0\u00a0In October, Atkins\u00a0gave a\u00a0major\u00a0speech<\/a>\u00a0outlining\u00a0ways companies might more often be able to exclude shareholder proposals from being voted on.\u00a0\u00a0In November, Atkins\u2019 staff issued\u00a0new\u00a0guidelines<\/a>\u00a0that effectively encouraged companies to exclude shareholder proposals\u00a0from being voted on. \u00a0And since November, Atkins\u2019 staff has\u00a0issued\u00a0more than\u00a070\u00a0\u201cNo Objection\u201d letters<\/a>\u00a0to companies\u00a0advising\u00a0them\u00a0that, based solely on the company\u2019s representations,\u00a0the SEC\u00a0\u201cwill not object if the Company excludes the Proposal from its proxy materials.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0This includes SEC \u201cNo\u00a0Objection\u201d letters\u00a0issued\u00a0to\u00a0four\u00a0companies\u00a0that seek to\u00a0exclude political spending transparency shareholder proposals from their 2026 proxy statements: \u00a0Pfizer<\/a>,\u00a0Teledyne\u00a0Technologies Incorporated<\/a>,\u00a0Huntington\u00a0Ingalls\u00a0Industries<\/a>, and\u00a0Cadence Design Systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSEC\u00a0Chair Atkins\u2019\u00a0draconian\u00a0actions\u00a0to silence shareholder\u00a0voices\u00a0have\u00a0ripped away the fig\u00a0leaf\u00a0by which the Supreme Court aimed to\u00a0hide the shame of\u00a0Citizens United,\u201d said\u00a0Jon\u00a0Golinger, Democracy Advocate with Public Citizen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout\u00a0shareholder accountability,\u00a0we are even more\u00a0at risk of corporations dictating the results of American elections.\u00a0We\u00a0call on\u00a0Congress\u00a0to\u00a0pass legislation\u00a0that\u00a0prevents public\u00a0companies from\u00a0silencing\u00a0their\u00a0shareholders\u00a0as a modest step to mitigate the harms of Citizens United.\u00a0Ultimately, to\u00a0undo massive damage, Congress must adopt and the states must ratify a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and related decisions\u00a0and to restore the principle\u00a0that\u00a0we the\u00a0people, not Big Money,\u00a0must\u00a0decide our\u00a0elections.\u201d<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-118672","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","tax_topic-money-in-politics","tax_topic-protecting-democracy","tax_case_topic-campaign-finance-elections","tax_news-press"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Administration's Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse - Public Citizen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Administration's Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse - Public Citizen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0On the 16th\u00a0anniversary of\u00a0the Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0disastrous\u00a0Citizens United\u00a0decision\u00a0that unleashed unlimited election spending by big corporations,\u00a0a Public Citizen analysis has found\u00a0the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Citizen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/publiccitizen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/public_citizen_shared_link.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Public_Citizen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/\",\"name\":\"Trump Administration's Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse - Public Citizen\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-21T16:17:53+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Trump Administration’s Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/\",\"name\":\"Public Citizen\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Trump Administration's Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse - Public Citizen","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Trump Administration's Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse - Public Citizen","og_description":"WASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0On the 16th\u00a0anniversary of\u00a0the Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0disastrous\u00a0Citizens United\u00a0decision\u00a0that unleashed unlimited election spending by big corporations,\u00a0a Public Citizen analysis has found\u00a0the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/","og_site_name":"Public Citizen","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/publiccitizen\/","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":628,"url":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/public_citizen_shared_link.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@Public_Citizen","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/","url":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/","name":"Trump Administration's Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse - Public Citizen","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-01-21T16:17:53+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/trump-administrations-efforts-to-strip-shareholder-rights-makes-the-miserable-citizens-united-impacts-even-worse\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Trump Administration’s Efforts to Strip Shareholder Rights Makes the Miserable Citizens United Impacts Even Worse"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/","name":"Public Citizen","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/118672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/118672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118673,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/118672\/revisions\/118673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}