Shareholder Action Update: Spotlight on JPMorgan Chase

We all know that Wall Street banks use their outsized economic and political power to shape and defeat all sorts of laws and regulations. At New Economy Project, we think that a system that allows giant corporations to dominate our political process is fundamentally wrong and woefully undemocratic. We believe the public has a right to know how much Wall Street is spending to influence government.

That’s why our organization, which owns stock in Chase, has co-filed a shareholder resolution calling on Chase to disclose fully how much the bank spends on lobbying – including lobbying carried out through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the many other trade associations in which Chase plays a prominent role. Chase is a key member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which since 1998 has spent more than $1 billion on lobbying, making it the single largest lobbyist in the country. The 22 trade associations in which Chase lists membership spent more than $180 million on federal lobbying last year alone.

Our resolution, filed with allies, will be up for a vote at the bank’s annual shareholder meeting on May 19, in Detroit. The resolution is part of a national campaign to shine a light on the massive amounts of money that Wall Street spends to defeat even the most common-sense regulations. [Read more.]

New Economy Project, which owns shares in the country’s largest banks, filed the resolution with The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and Walden Asset Management, among others.