It’s head spinning to watch the second Trump administration unfold. Daily directives – many unlawful – from Washington have upended the nation. Grant freezes, proposed tariffs, mass deportations, and ending federal DEI programs; attempted dissolution of congressionally created executive agencies; and restrictions on shareholder proposals are overwhelming.
In the wake of myriad executive orders and perceived partisan favoritism for some corporate players and intimidation for others, will some U.S. companies ultimately flourish and others falter?
Certainty is gone. This is the backdrop for the first proxy season of the Trump II era. Proxy advisory services soon will be making recommendations for 2025 votes on shareholder resolutions. It is important that these services and asset managers, as they decide, weigh the highly relevant findings of a recent Mason-Dixon survey of retail shareholders:
94% of respondents said they believe publicly traded companies should be required to publicly disclose all their political contributions.
86% of respondents said they support requiring corporations to disclose their political spending on the company’s website on a semi-annual basis.
83% replied they would have more confidence investing in corporations that have adopted reforms that provide for transparency and accountability in political spending.
What’s more, 87% of respondents said public companies should be required to have a code of conduct for assessing and governing their political spending, and 79% said they have more confidence investing in corporations that adopt or follow a code of conduct.
The Center for Political Accountability (CPA) and the Zicklin Center for Governance and Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School commissioned the survey. CPA shareholder partners have filed numerous disclosure resolutions for 2025. On a parallel track, CPA is asking companies to adopt or follow the CPA-Zicklin Model Code of Conduct for Corporate Political Spending , the premier framework for company guardrails around political spending.
In this first proxy season following the Mason-Dixon survey, the poll’s eye-popping findings lend momentum to CPA’s years-long drive for corporate political transparency and accountability. Simultaneously, the Model Code adoption effort is our next phase. Both initiatives rely on voluntary corporate action – private ordering – in a time of inaction and even backsliding by lawmakers, regulators, and courts.
Although the nation is divided, there is “remarkable agreement over public disclosure of corporate political contributions, board-level oversight over these contributions, and the importance of effective self-regulation of the many risks of political contributions by adopting a relevant corporate code,” William S. Laufer, Co-Director of the Zicklin Center, said in summing up the survey.
This extraordinary convergence of opinion matters vitally in a new governing climate of total uncertainty.
Shareholders overwhelmingly want political disclosure, accountability, and spending guardrails. Indeed, this proxy season, over 30 companies have received CPA’s political disclosure resolution. They state clearly that CPA wants companies to follow a code of conduct for their political spending. When old norms are dismantled by disruption and uncertainty, these actions strengthen companies whether or not they currently engage in potentially risky political spending.
Bruce Freed
President, Center for Political Accountability
Dan Carroll
Vice President, Programs and Counsel, Center for Political Accountability