01 Jun Old Friends
As we have mentioned countless times – in these pages and in speeches, interviews, etc. – the longest chapter in The Dictatorship of Woke Capital is the chapter dedicated to identifying those who play significant roles in undermining free and fair capital markets. Meanwhile, the shortest chapter is about those who are desperately seeking to “resist” that effort, those who wish to keep politics out of the boardroom, and, to paraphrase Calvin Coolidge, to ensure that the chief business of the American people remains business.
Among those working most diligently to preserve (or recreate) free and fair capital markets are the good folks at the Free Enterprise Project. In the book, I describe FEP as follows:
Over the past decade, FEP has focused largely, but not exclusively, on shareholder activism by engaging in what it calls “back-to-neutral” activism and what its opponents call “right-wing” activism. The FEP describes itself as “the conservative movement’s only full-service shareholder activism and education program” and says that it “annually files more than 90 percent of all right-of-center shareholder resolutions.”
This alone serves as an important measure of just how overmatched the right-leaning, pro–free-market activists are in this arena. The FEP is, in fact, the conservative movement’s only shareholder activist group. And for most of the last decade, the FEP was Justin Danhof. That is to say that since 2012, Danhof has been everything to the FEP: the director, the associate director, the deputy director, the deputy associate director, the research director, the research assistant, the senior analyst, the senior writer, the administrative assistant, and the part-time shopkeeper. He has been a one-man show, in other words, with occasional support from the rest of the National Center.
In her 2017 bestseller The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech, Kimberly Strassel, a columnist and editorial board member at the Wall Street Journal, wrote, “If you’ve never been to a corporate shareholder meeting, you’ve likely never heard of Justin Danhof. If you ever have been to one, you’ll likely never forget him.” That’s both a compliment to Danhof, who is indefatigable, and a commentary on the state of play in the shareholder activist game. It might be an exaggeration to compare Justin to Leonidas at Thermopylae, but only because Leonidas had 299 other Spartans, while Danhof has been almost entirely on his own.
As I note in the paperback edition of the book (out now!), a few things have changed at FEP in the two years since the hardback was published. To start, Danhof took his immeasurable skills to the private sector, to work for Strive Asset Management, where he is now the head of corporate governance. The intrepid Scott Shepard, who is mentioned briefly in the hardback, took over as the Director of the Free Enterprise Project and has become an anti-woke-capital force in his own right. Additionally, FEP has added some staff and has expanded the scope of its efforts, moving beyond just shareholder activism.
Just over a month ago, for example, the Free Enterprise Project (which is a project of the National Center for Public Policy Research) filed suit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to force the SEC to quit playing partisan/ideological politics with shareholder initiatives. In the suit, FEP/NCPPR is represented by our friends, the brilliant legal minds at Boyden Gray & Associates and American First Legal, which described the case this way:
NCPPR is a communications and research foundation that focuses on providing free market solutions to public policy problems and is a longtime Kroger Co. (“Kroger”) shareholder.
In its “Framework for Action: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion,” Kroger indicates that it “strives to reflect the communities we serve and foster a culture that empowers everyone to be their true self.” As part of its effort to associate its brand with diversity and inclusion, Kroger’s board adopted The Kroger Co. Policy on Business Ethics, which commits Kroger “to a policy of equal opportunity for all associates without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
NCPPR sent a proposal to Kroger requesting, as shareholders, that Kroger issue a public report detailing the potential risks associated with omitting “viewpoint” and “ideology” from its written equal employment opportunity (EEO) policy.
Kroger submitted a letter to the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance arguing that the Proposal “deals with matters relating to the Company’s ordinary business operations” because it pertains only to “Kroger’s management of its workforce and policies concerning employees.” Kroger, and the SEC, effectively turned a blind eye and blocked the proposal, ignoring the fact that conservatives often face employment discrimination due to political ideology, while acknowledging other factors like “gender.”
NCPPR argued that the SEC was engaging in viewpoint discrimination by giving the green light to identical proposals about certain forms of discrimination (e.g., against sexual orientation and gender identity) while agreeing companies could exclude proposals about other forms of discrimination that are at least as significant to society (e.g., viewpoint and ideology, especially against conservatives).
I mention all of this today for a couple of reasons. First, I want to highlight the good work that our friends in the anti-/post-ESG movement are doing. You don’t need us to tell you how important this case is. If the SEC is discriminating against FEP based on political beliefs, then it is capable of discriminating against anyone for almost any reason. Forcing this arm of the government of, by, and for the people to treat people equally is not only critical to preserving free and fair capital markets but is also its basic and irrevocable responsibility under this nation’s social contract. Government discrimination of this sort is inarguably unacceptable in a constitutional republic.
In a very concrete way, all those involved in bringing this case are fighting for the basic liberties the rest of us too often take for granted.
The other reason we mention this is because we want to clear up some confusion. As you may recall, just about a year ago, I announced that all of the publications and other projects of The Political Forum would be taken over by The Political Forum Institute, our non-profit educational arm. The Political Forum Institute, in turn, would become a fiscally sponsored project of the National Center for Public Policy Research, in affiliation with the Free Enterprise Project. In December, I sent a note to all of you, asking if you might consider supporting my work by making a donation to the National Center and designating it specifically to be used in support of The Political Forum Institute. Many of you made donations, and to all of you, I am eternally grateful.
I have been made aware recently, that those of you who donated to the National Center are now being solicited for additional contributions. This is, of course, perfectly normal, standard operating procedure in the non-profit world. Those who supported the cause in the past are most likely to support it again in the future.
In this case, however, there is a catch. My affiliation with the National Center will be ending very soon. I will have more details about this and what comes next in due time. For now, what this means is that any donations you make to the National Center for Public Policy Research will go to the National Center for Public Policy Research. They will NOT go to support The Political Forum Institute and its mission. To be clear: I’m NOT saying that you should avoid donating to NCPPR. Not at all. Just be aware that doing so will no longer benefit me or TPFI.
If you asked me – and I know that technically, you didn’t – if you want to donate to NCPPR, designate your donation to be used in support of the Free Enterprise Project. As I’ve tried to highlight here, not only was FEP a pioneer in pushing back against “woke capital,” but Scott and his team continue to do incredibly important work. The post-ESG movement would not exist today without them.
