General Dynamics to no longer contribute to political organizations

I came across this article at work just before my shift and thought it was sort of interesting.

General Dynamics is an American aerospace and defense company, some background can be found here to get started with if you want.

The article discusses an announcement made by General Dynamics to no longer make contributions to political organizations or nonprofit groups that provide money to campaigns and causes.

The decision, which was noted in a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday, comes in response to a shareholder proposal concerning lobbying disclosure. That proposal, which was made by the New York State Common Retirement Fund that owns 960,716 shares of common stock, requests that the board of directors authorize an annual report disclosing lobbying policy and procedures, payments made by the company for direct and indirect and grassroots lobbying communications, and membership in and payments to tax-exempt organizations that write and endorse model legislation.

On the surface I think this is a good start for some kind of transparency at least. Shareholders voiced concerns that they have no way of knowing how much of the company's money is being used to lobby government.

The part that made me most interested is at the end of the article where it says:

"The company’s board of directors continues to believe that the report requested in [the proposal] is not necessary and recommends a vote against the proposal," General Dynamics noted in the filing.

I haven't been able to look for the actual text of the proposal yet, but based on the article it seems that the Board of Directors certainly wants to keep lobbyist money flowing in order to keep government money flowing back.

Anyway, thought some of you may be interested based on the decision of the company and the Board's comment.

a reply to: Shaker

If our representatives in congress would have the backbone to eliminate all lobbying, we wouldn't have to deal with corporations controlling our representatives.

General Dynamics does propulsion also, but that branch was bought by L3.

GenDyn is probably one of my favorite companies in the defense industry.
In my local area, we have Howmet corp, Johnson Tech and GenDyn /L3 in one county.

The industry is well diversified, however larger conglomerates are absorbing everyone it seems to me at least.

a reply to: WeRpeons


Never going to happen, no way, no how. The most psychotic and the most corrupt people on the planet (which politicians generally are irrespective of country) aren't going to suddenly act against their own personal interests.

a reply to: Shaker

This too good to be true. Why? No one gives up power.

a reply to: MOMof3
I keep thinking the same thing.
All I can come up with, is that the threat of those 900,000+ shares hitting the market would cause the share price to tank--but the NY State Retirement fund would lose by dumping the shares all at once, too, so that can't be it.