
For the vast majority of the U.S. population not involved in shareholder activism, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co. are far from household names. Yet these two firms dominate the business of providing advice to pension funds, asset managers, and other institutional investors on how to vote on issues that come up for a vote at corporate annual meetings.
These proxy advisors increasingly find themselves being targeted by those on the right who want to obliterate anything that they see as promoting progressivism. The latest attack comes from MAGA-loving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who just announced his office has launched an investigation of the two firms for “potentially misleading institutional investors and public companies by issuing voting recommendations that advance radical political agendas rather than sound financial principles.”
Whatever restraint Paxton exhibited with the use of the term “potentially” in the first paragraph of his press release disappears by the third paragraph, which quotes the AG as saying: “My office has zero tolerance for these woke corporations smuggling radical, liberal ideology into the companies they advise and into the entirety of America’s financial system.”
Paxton’s witch hunt is just the latest phase of a long-running campaign against shareholder activism that has increasingly zeroed in on the proxy firms. In 2020, during Trump’s first term, the SEC moved to define proxy voting advice as solicitation and thereby impose onerous regulations on the activity.
That policy was rolled back during the Biden Administration, but business groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers sued to restore the restrictions. In July of this year, a federal appeals court ruled against the business groups, finding that the advisory firms are not engaged in solicitation.
Opponents of ISS and Glass Lewis have also tried to hamstring the firms through legislation. Earlier this year, the Texas legislature enacted SB 2337, a law that would have effectively required proxy advisors to tell investors that any voting recommendations based in whole or in part on environmental, social or governance (ESG) considerations were not in their financial interest. The firms sued, arguing that the law violated their First Amendment and due process rights. A federal judge in Texas recently issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law while the matter proceeds to trial.
Paxton, who survived a 2023 impeachment trial and is now running for the U.S. Senate, has every reason to paint himself as a crusader against supposed DEI and woke ideology. In doing so, he is one of numerous Republican elected officials who are waging war against the free speech rights of anyone who does not toe the MAGA line.
Yet it is odd that figures such as Paxton seem to be obsessed with the proxy advisors, which do not seem to have much influence over corporate policies these days. Most large companies have retreated from DEI and ESG practices, many of which were not that meaningful in the first place. And it is worth noting that shareholder resolutions are in most cases not binding. If activists overcome the high hurdles in winning a vote, the company is free to ignore the result.
Given this reality and the fact that ISS and Glass Lewis are a lot less radical that Paxton would have us believe, the battle over proxy advice seems to be little more than another MAGA anti-woke charade.