Free Republic

Responding to the public furor over bonuses paid to executives of Wall Street firms bailed out by taxpayers, the House voted to give shareholders a bigger say over compensation in the first piece of President Obama’s overhaul of financial regulations... “If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that the compensation practices of some of our largest corporations have gotten completely out of control,” said Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.). “We’ve got to act to prevent the next financial meltdown,” added Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), in a comment echoed by fellow Republicans, assailed the measure...

The GOP candidate's call to allow shareholders to vote on executive compensation is seen as an appeal to middle-class voters and the unions John McCain threw a dash of populist pepper into an otherwise fairly traditional Republican stew of economic policies with his June 10 proposal to allow shareholders a vote on executive compensation. The idea, known informally among executive-pay activists as Say on Pay, put McCain into strange company: It has been promoted heavily by unions, and it was introduced in the Senate in April by none other than Barack Obama. (snip) "For too long, government has been the...

WASHINGTON, April 20 -- The U.S. House of Representatives Friday approved a bill that would give stockholders a right to cast non-binding votes on the pay of top company executives. The "say on pay" bill, which passed 269-134, would also let shareholders vote on any executive "golden parachute" compensation negotiated as part of a purchase or sale of a company. After the vote, presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., promised to introduce what an aide described as an "identical" bill in the Senate. The bill would give "shareholders the power to debate and fight back against exorbitant executive compensation," Obama...