Carol Shea-Porter on Corporations Democrat

Voted NO on workforce training by state block grants & industry partners.

Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills Act or SKILLS Act:
• Reauthorizes appropriations workforce investment systems for job training and employment services.
• Requires a plan describe:
  1. strategies and services to more fully engage employers and meet their needs, as well as those to assist at-risk youth and out-of-school youth in acquiring education, skills, credentials, and employment experience;
  2. how the state board will convene industry or sector partnerships that lead to collaborative planning;
  3. how the state will use technology to facilitate access to services in remote areas;
  4. state actions to foster partnerships with non-profit organizations that provide employment-related services; and
  5. the methodology for determining one-stop partner program contributions for the cost of the infrastructure of one-stop centers.
• Repeals title VI (Employment Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities)

National League of Cities op-ed, "H.R. 803 fails because it would:"
1. Undermine the local delivery system that has been the cornerstone of job training programs
2. Establish a program that is based on political boundaries (states) rather than on economic regions and local labor markets, or the naturally evolving areas in which workers find paying work
3. Eliminate a strong role for local elected officials but require that they continue to be fiscally liable for funds spent in their local areas
4. Change what was once a program targeted to those most in need--economically disadvantaged adults and youth and special population groups like veterans, migrant farm workers, and low income seniors--into a block grant to governors
5. Contribute to the emerging division between those American's who have the requisite skills to find employment and those who do not.

Voted YES on letting shareholders vote on executive compensation.

Corporate and Financial Institution Compensation Fairness Act: Amends the Securities Exchange Act to require that any proxy for an annual shareholders meeting provide for a separate shareholder vote to approve executive compensation for named executive officers. The shareholder vote shall not be:

1. binding on the corporation
2. construed as overruling a board decision, or as creating or implying any additional fiduciary duty by the board; or
3. construed as restricting or limiting shareholder ability to place executive compensation proposals within proxy materials.

Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Rep. BARNEY FRANK (D, MA-4): The amount of wages is irrelevant to the SEC. What this bill explicitly aims at is the practice whereby people are given bonuses that pay off if the gamble pays off, but don't lose you anything if it doesn't. That is, there is a wide consensus that this incentivizes excessive risk.

Opponent's argument to vote No:Rep. SPENCER BACHUS (R, AL-6): True, the first 6 pages of the bill give the owners, the shareholders, a non-binding vote on the pay of top executives. But then come the next 8 pages, the switch, which gives the regulators the power to decide appropriate compensation for not only just top executives but for all employees of all financial institutions above $1 billion in assets and all without regard for the shareholders' prior approval. So under the guise of empowering shareholders, it is, in fact, the government that is empowered. And, finally, on page 15, the bill designates those same government entities which regulated AIG, Countrywide, and collectively failed to prevent the worst financial calamity since the Great Depression. This bill continues the Democrat majority's tendency to go to the default solution for every problem: create a government bureaucracy to make decisions better left to private citizens and private corporations.

Voted YES on more funding for nanotechnology R&D and commercialization.

Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Rep. NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ (D, NY-12): We need jobs that cannot be shipped overseas and will not evaporate in the next cycle of boom and bust. But those jobs aren't going to appear out of thin air. They need to be created. By expanding existing industries and unlocking new ones, H.R. 2965 will generate the jobs we need. Job creation is the primary goal of R&D. But in order to generate new positions, we have to first develop new industries. Commercialization is critical to that process.

Opponent's argument to vote No:Rep. ED MARKEY (D, MA-7): I must oppose this bill because I have serious concerns about allowing SBIR awards to go to an unlimited number of businesses owned or controlled by venture capital (VC) firms. The SBIR program, responsible for over 60,000 patents, has always focused on innovation from truly small businesses for whom commercial capital market funding is typically not an option. However, with the change made in this bill, the SBIR program would be wide open to applicants that already are well-capitalized due to VC participation, crowding out the small businesses that have been the focus of the highly successful SBIR program.

While I support VC participation in the SBIR program, enabling an unlimited amount of large VC majority-owned firms to qualify for SBIR funding calls into question whether this program, intended for genuinely small businesses, is, in fact, still focused on these firms.

We should do everything in our power to strengthen small businesses that generate 70% of new jobs in our country. H.R 2965 does not do enough to ensure that small businesses are the focus of the SBIR program, and therefore I cannot support the bill.

Voted YES on allowing stockholder voting on executive compensation.

Proponents support voting YES because:

We should not deprive the public, the stockholders, from being able to do anything meaningful once they find out about scandalous levels of executive compensation or board compensation. Everyone talks about the corporate board as the remedy. But the board is often a part of the problem, being paid huge amounts of money for showing up once or twice a year at meetings.

Give the stockholders a meaningful remedy. Once you get the mandatory disclosure put in place by previous legislation, we are saying the stockholders should be allowed to have a referendum on that and not have a runaround by the board.

Opponents support voting NO because:

This vote is based on mischaracterization--it is an unnecessary amendment. The opportunity for these kinds of votes already exists within the structure of corporate governance right now. A good company from Georgia, AFLAC, went ahead and already has these nonbinding shareholder votes. But there is a difference between having individuals in the private sector, shareholders and individuals outside of the mandating of government to have it occur and have government come in with its heavy hand and say, this is exactly what you need to do because we know best. Our constituents know better how to act and how to relate to corporations than Washington.

Screen imports & ban lead in children's products.

A bill to reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission to provide greater protection for children's products, to improve the screening of non-compliant consumer products, to improve the effectiveness of consumer product recall programs, and for other purposes.

• Requires third party certification of, and provides for tracking and record keeping regarding, children's products.
• [Increase] reporting of substantial product hazards and corrective action plans.
• Requires certain manufacturers or distributors to post an escrow or proof of insurance to cover recalls.
• Allows enforcement by state attorneys general and provides public and private sector whistleblower protections.
• Bans children's products containing lead and lowers the allowable lead content in paint.
• Requires a study of preventable injuries and deaths of minority children related to consumer products.
• Requires a cost-benefit analysis under the Poison Prevention Packaging Act.
• Requires development of a risk assessment methodology regarding imports.
• Requires publication of a list of product defects that constitute a substantial product hazard.
• Conditions importation of a consumer product on the manufacturer's compliance with inspection and record keeping requirements.
• Requires a database on violations of consumer product safety rules to be used to determine whether a container being imported contains consumer products that are in violation of a consumer product safety standard and whether action should be taken under imported products provisions.

Corporate political spending is not free speech.

Constitutional Amendment

1. Whereas the right to vote in public elections belongs only to natural persons, so shall the ability to make contributions and expenditures to influence the outcome of public elections belong only to natural persons.
2. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to restrict the power of Congress and the States to protect the integrity and fairness of the electoral process, limit the corrupting influence of private wealth in public elections, and guarantee the dependence of elected officials on the people alone by taking actions which may include the establishment of systems of public financing for elections, or the imposition of requirements to ensure the disclosure of [election] contributions and expenditures.
3. Nothing in this Article shall be construed to alter the freedom of the press.

Opponents recommend voting NO because:[Supreme Court majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, for which the Constitutional Amendment is proposed as a remedy. The FEC had ruled that the movie "Hillary", released in 2008 to persuade voters against Hillary Clinton, was illegal because it was a disguised campaign contribution made by a corporation. The Supreme Court overruled the FEC]:

Modern day movies might portray public officials in unflattering ways. Yet if a covered transmission [is broadcast] during the blackout period, a felony occurs solely because a corporation, [instead of a candidate or donors, paid] in order to engage in political speech. Speech would be suppressed in the realm where its necessity is most evident: in the public dialogue preceding a real election. Governments are often hostile to speech, but it seems stranger than fiction for our Government to make this political speech a crime. Some members of the public might consider Hillary to be insightful and instructive; some might find it to be [unfair]; those assessments, however, are not for the Government to make.