The Corporate Reform Coalition, whose members include investors, academics, and public interest groups, is urging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to consider a rulemaking petition that would require all publicly traded companies to disclose political spending information to their shareholders.

In a Sept. 4 press conference outside the SEC’s Washington headquarters, advocates for greater disclosure touted the unprecedented support for the petition that, they say, has received “a record-breaking one million comments” in support from investors and the general public since its filing in August of 2011.

The rule was placed on the agency’s agenda by departing SEC Chair Mary Shapiro in 2013 but, in a blow to advocates, was removed earlier this year. Critics of the proposed rule, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argue it will impose unnecessary costs on corporations and question whether mainstream investors are in fact supportive, pointing to low support levels for shareholder resolutions on the topic.

“Even though the total number of political disclosure proposals at Fortune 200 companies increased . . . support by actual shareholders is declining,” Chamber officials wrote in a lengthy January 2013 comment letter in response to the petition. “There simply is no basis for the Commission to conclude that there is significant shareholder support, outside the limited category of self-interested shareholders, for mandatory disclosure rules in this area.”

However, advocates of the petition contend that current SEC Chair Mary Jo White, under whose watch the petition was removed from the agency’s agenda, “is not taking into account the changing needs of investors since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.” That ruling, they argue, gave corporations and the wealthy a green light to spend “unlimited sums to influence elections” and led to a flood of “dark money” groups that don’t disclose their donors. They also suggest White is “ignoring the material nature” of political spending information (with its inherent risks) to shareholders.

“We understand that the SEC has been facing considerable political pressure from members of Congress not to consider a rule mandating disclosure of corporate political spending,” wrote Lucian Bebchuk of Harvard Law School, and Robert J. Jackson Jr. of Columbia Law School, in a Sept 4 posting on an HLS blog covering corporate governance and financial regulation. “Nevertheless, the massive support in the comment file for such a rule and the strength of the arguments in favor of the proposal that have been advanced both inside and outside the comment file make the case for the SEC’s consideration of a rule in this area clear and strong.”

Bebchuk and Jackson are among a diverse group of academics who in 2011 spearheaded the rulemaking petition.

Against the backdrop of this week’s developments and for the third year, more shareholder proposals were submitted on political issues than any other issue area, according to an ISS analysis of 2014 proxy season voting data. The category made up 30 percent of all environmental and social (E&S) resolutions filed for 2014 with 139 submissions. Resolutions associated with one of the two larger political issue campaigns, political contributions disclosure and lobbying disclosure, accounted for more than two-thirds of all resolutions filed (95 proposals).

New this year was an increase in the variety of smaller political issue campaigns. Proponents introduced three new coordinated campaigns, one on climate change advocacy, another on company membership in organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the third on political spending, with an indirect focus on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In addition, of the five E&S resolutions that received majority support, four were either political contributions or lobbying resolutions (the fifth was the laudatory animal welfare resolution that was backed by management support).

Notably, shareholders associated with the campaign led by the Center for Political Accountability (CPA) submitted 47 proposals asking companies to report on their direct and indirect political contributions. Of these proposals, 32 went to a vote and received an average of 28.5 percent shareholder support. In comparison, 50 proposals were submitted in 2013 as part of this campaign–28 of the proposals went to a vote and received an average shareholder support of 31.5 percent, slightly above the previous high reached in 2012 of 29.8 percent.

An additional political contributions proposal went to a vote this year at Sprint Corporation. The resolution was initially filed in 2013 by the New York City Pension Funds, but because of the July 2013 acquisition of the company by SoftBank Corporation, the 2013 annual meeting was not held. The proposal was subsequently printed on the company’s 2014 proxy and presented at the annual meeting. If this resolution is included in the 2014 statistics, then the 33 resolutions voted on in 2014, received 27.7 percent shareholder support. Proposals in the campaign are still pending at H&R Block, Darden Restaurants, FedEx, Cardinal Health, and Cisco Systems.

Following some substantial revisions in 2011, the CPA political contributions resolution remained unchanged from the version submitted in the 2012 and 2013 proxy seasons. The one exception was the resolution submitted at AT&T, which varied slightly from the rest in that the request focused only on the company’s indirect political contributions. While acknowledging AT&T’s sufficient disclosure of its direct political expenditures, the proponent asserted that the company lacked disclosure of its indirect activities, such as contributions to trade associations and other tax-exempt organizations that are used for political purposes.

This year, there were seven proposals that received 40 percent or more shareholder support, and one that received a majority vote of 51.8 percent at Dean Foods. A close second in terms of high shareholder support was the proposal at Duke Energy, which received 49.4 percent support.

The proposal at Duke may have received significant traction due to the coal ash spill at a retired power plant that resulted in coal ash being carried into the Dan River in North Carolina. The Associated Press reported that there were allegations of lenient enforcement of environmental regulations; particularly since the current governor, who took office in 2013, is a former Duke employee and is reportedly a recipient of political contributions from the company. The Associated Press also reported that there is a criminal investigation taking place led by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina into the Dan River spill and the state’s oversight of Duke’s other coal ash dumps.

In response to the February coal ash spill, and related events and issues, California Public Employees’ Retirement System and New York City mounted a ‘vote no’ campaign against the four directors that sit on Duke’s Regulatory Policy and Operations Committee, the committee with oversight responsibility for environmental and political issues, among others. However, all directors were reelected to the board.–Enver Fitch and Limor Bernstock, ESG Proxy Research