ASA Applauds SEC Action to Depoliticize Shareholder Proposal System

WASHINGTON – The American Securities Association (ASA) today applauded the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for issuing a staff legal bulletin that will protect investors by depoliticizing the shareholder proposal system. 

“These changes will prevent well-funded special interest groups and moneyed elites from forcing their political, social and cultural views into the board rooms of public companies,” said ASA President and CEO Chris Iacovella. “Acting Chair Uyeda previously described Gensler’s ‘broad societal impact’ standard as unleashing a ‘tyranny of the minority’ system and we applaud him for using his authority to protect the interests of working families and retirees from the professional political class.”

ASA has long-called on the SEC to depoliticize the proxy process, first in a 2021 Washington Times op-ed on how the "SEC unleashes political activists on the American economy", and more recently outlining its principles for proxy reform in a 2023 letter to the House Financial Services Committee. 

###

The American Securities Association (ASA) represents the retail and institutional capital markets interests of regional financial services firms who provide Main Street businesses with access to capital and advise hardworking Americans how to create and preserve wealth. ASA’s mission is to promote trust and confidence among investors, facilitate capital formation, and support efficient and competitively balanced capital markets. This mission advances financial independence, stimulates job creation, and increases prosperity. The ASA has a geographically diverse membership of almost one hundred members that spans the Heartland, Southwest, Southeast, Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States.