A Responsibility to Speak: Citizens United, Corporate Governance and Managing Risks

Contrary to prior assumptions, the right to corporate political speech established by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission should not damage corporate stock prices or negatively affect firm value. A sampling of indexes and individual corporate stock prices provides empirical data demonstrating that corporate political spending does not harm shareholders. Special shareholder protections in the event of corporate political speech are therefore unnecessary and such corporate speech does not impinge a shareholder’s ability to exercise political beliefs. On the contrary, corporations require the ability to protect their own interest against regulation that may hamper economic success by engaging in political speech