Ranking Member Raskin’s Opening Statement at Subcommittee Hearing on Proxy Advisors
Washington, D.C. (June 25, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, delivered opening remarks at the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust hearing on Republicans’ demonization of responsible shareholders they disagree with.
Below are Ranking Member Raskin’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at today’s hearing.
WATCH Ranking Member Raskin’s opening statement.
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin
Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust
Hearing on “The Proxy Advisor Duopoly’s Anticompetitive Conduct”
June 25, 2025
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here with us today.
Today’s hearing is the latest installment in a series of non-antitrust antitrust hearings. And because my Republican colleagues seem so confused on the subject, I think a primer on what antitrust means is in order.
The Supreme Court has compared the antitrust laws to, “The Magna Carta of free enterprise. They are as important to the preservation of economic freedom and our free enterprise system as the Bill of Rights is to the protection of our fundamental personal freedoms.” Robust antitrust enforcement is vital for all of American society, from its consumers to its workers and innovators and more. Antitrust is fundamentally about making sure the marketplace is a level playing field for companies to innovate and compete.
My Republican colleagues seem confused. In hearing after hearing, they seem to think antitrust is about Congress and the President picking favorites to help or going after companies they dislike. That’s got nothing to do with antitrust, free markets, or fair competition—that’s Gangster State Economics.
Our colleagues across the aisle accuse two proxy advisors, ISS and Glass Lewis, of colluding to advance a progressive agenda when they make recommendations to their clients in advance of shareholder meetings.
And indeed, we on the antitrust subcommittee should be concerned about collusion in the market, no matter where it is. As Justice Scalia warned, “the supreme evil of antitrust [is] collusion.” Collusion between competitors with the intent to fix pricing, for example, is per se illegal.
So, you would think that if my Republican colleagues were going to use their bully pulpit to accuse two companies with “the supreme evil of antitrust,” they’d come with mountains of incontrovertible, unassailable, iron clad evidence. But even their own witnesses aren’t alleging collusion.
And it’s not like my colleagues haven’t been warned. The Supreme Court has gone out of its way to explain, “an allegation of parallel conduct and a bare assertion of conspiracy will not suffice.” But that’s exactly what my Republican colleagues are doing here: making allegations and assertions of collusion without proof.
And this isn’t just an innocent mistake. My Republican colleagues are using these allegations to distort the market and target ideas and actors they dislike. They did this last Congress by targeting carbon-conscious investors for daring to use their rights as shareholders to push oil companies to invest in renewable fuel and position these companies to be more competitive in the face of the very real threat of climate changes—a global climate emergency that will have a direct effect on the bottom line of fossil fuel companies.
And now the Majority is wielding this same empty theory of antitrust harm against the proxy advisors. Why? Because these companies help shareholders, including those committed to responsible investing, maximize their rights as part-owners of publicly-traded companies.
These proxy advisors are responding to a marketplace demand. They are responding to the needs of their customers. There is an increased appetite among shareholders to invest responsibly. And these investors—proxy advisors’ clients—want to exercise their rights as shareholders to push for changes to corporate governance and policy.
Proxy advisors like ISS and Glass Lewis go through hundreds and thousands of pages of proxy materials and give their customers their independent assessment of shareholder proposals—helping their clients decide whether to support or oppose these proposals. They work for their clients and do not serve their own agenda. Their only role is to provide information to their clients to enable them to exercise their shareholder rights. These companies have every right to issue their assessment of these proposals, just as their clients have a shareholder right to propose, consider, and vote on them.
And, just to be clear, the issues they are called to evaluate are not just Democratic or progressive shareholder initiatives. True, my Republican colleagues seem very worked up about shareholder initiatives that call for things like an audit of child labor practices in the meatpacking industries or an assessment of working conditions in commercial warehouses that have above average workplace injuries.
But the exercise of shareholder rights is not and has never been a one-sided, partisan exercise. Over the past few years there has been record growth in shareholder proposals from conservative groups, like the proposal at Disney to urge the company to sever ties with the Human Rights Campaign.
That proposal failed, just like many progressive shareholder proposals fail. And even if it had succeeded, let me remind you that these shareholder proposals are entirely non-binding. They can give expression to shareholder concerns—left, right, and center—but they cannot force a company to do anything at all.
So, what is really the problem here? Why are we repeating a hearing that the Financial Services Committee just had at the end of April? Why are we concerning ourselves with supposed conflicts of interest when the SEC has already addressed them with rules proposed under Trump and kept under Biden?
We are here because it seems that the Republicans and the Trump Administration don’t seem to believe in allowing voters to be informed. Instead, they are making it harder for voters to learn about the issues and tougher for voters to cast their ballots—especially when these voters are likely to disagree with them.
Shareholder rights, like the right to vote, are protected by law. This empty theory of antitrust harm infringes on the free market, on shareholder rights, and on the ability of shareholders to be informed.
Antitrust should not be used to censor speech, distort markets, or disenfranchise shareholders. And this is censorship masquerading as an antitrust claim.
I thank my colleagues and yield back.