In which a leftwinger threatens a privately-owned Texas company for engaging in the political process.
Comptroller Scott Stringer, investment adviser and trustee to the $150 billion city pension funds, is questioning “both the magnitude and the corporate purpose” behind the Clayton Williams Energy Inc. donations to the National Rifle Association and American Crossroads, a conservative political action committee. He’s urging full disclosure to shareholders of all political spending, saying it poses “legal, reputational and operational risks.”
“The reported contributions are extremely large for such a small company and seem intended to further the political views of its chairman and CEO rather than the interests of the company itself,” Stringer said Monday.
Stringer, a Democrat, was a state assemblyman and Manhattan borough president before he was elected comptroller last year. His letter was emailed and faxed to the company Friday.
The answer should be straightforward: None of your business. The NRA is a perfectly legal organization that defends a basic civil right. It’s legal, even moral, to help the NRA do its job if one agrees with its aims and has the means to help.
New York’s comptroller doesn’t believe in “none of your business,” though. He believes in turning government into a partisan weapon.
New York City’s pension funds have submitted about 55 shareholder proposals for 2014, withdrawing nearly half after reaching agreements with the companies, spokesman Eric Sumberg said. Topics include political spending disclosures, executive pay clawback policies, proxy access, board and workplace diversity and environmental risk management.
About 700 to 800 nonbinding shareholder resolutions are filed annually in the U.S., mostly at large companies. Many focus on shareholder value and management accountability, while others are concerned with social issues like global warming, labor rights or gender equality.
Basically, he’s on a jihad to social engineer private companies via pension pestering. It’s all about overturning Citizens United, which is settled law by the way, however and by whatever means come to hand. The IRS scandal is a symptom of a deep progressive obsession with limiting speech that disagrees with them.
It’s clearer by the day that progressives are perfectly happy to leave others free to do exactly what progressives demand, no more and no less.
h/t JWF
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