‘We’re the Ones Yelling Stop’: How These Conservatives Are Fighting Corporations’ Liberal Tilt

By supporting a nonprofit that favors rationing health care, biotech giant Johnson & Johnson appears to violate its founding principles, a conservative shareholder activist says.

The activist brought this contradiction to the attention of the corporation’s CEO at a shareholder meeting last month, in what he hopes will become a model practice for other conservatives.

Conservatives can be effective in challenging liberals’ efforts to move major corporations to the left if they simply acquire some stock and speak up with facts, David Almasi, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said in a phone interview with The Daily Signal.

In recent weeks, Almasi and fellow activists also politely confronted executives of four other major U.S. corporations—AT&T, Bank of America, Amazon, and Twitter—at shareholder meetings.

“Often these days, corporate America has become a muscle and piggy bank for the left,” Almasi told The Daily Signal. “Sometimes executives do this for reasons of public relations, but in most cases, they are not helping consumers or their investors.”

“We’re the ones yelling stop during these meetings and asking them to think about what they are doing and to ask themselves if they are giving a fiduciary benefit to their investors and customers.”

In the past four years, the Free Enterprise Project of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank based in Washington, has made its voice heard in more than 100 shareholder meetings.

Amazon and Twitter, in separate shareholder meetings, this week rejected the Free Enterprise Project’s formal proposal that their boards reflect “true diversity.”

The full text of the proposal, on page 33 of Amazon’s proxy statement, specifies “ideological diversity” on the board as well as diversity based on race and gender.

Twitter rejected the idea Monday and Amazon did so Wednesday. The same diversity proposal is up for consideration at Facebook’s May 30 shareholder meeting and at Salesforce’s June 6 meeting.

“We believe that boards that incorporate diverse perspectives can think more critically and oversee corporate managers more effectively,” the Free Enterprise Project said in a statement supporting the...

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