Lucian Bebchuk is still arguing for corporate disclosure of political expenditures:
The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently considering a rulemaking petition urging the Commission to develop rules requiring public companies to disclose their political spending. ... [S]uch rules would lead to considerable benefits for investors. As we explained in the petition, and in Shining Light on Corporate Political Spending, such rules would give investors information they have long been requesting from the companies they own. Furthermore, disclosure is necessary to ensure that directors and executives make political spending decisions that are consistent with shareholder interests.
What exactly are these purported benefits? His first point, namely that investors (which ones?) have been asking for the information, is specious. Just because someone asks for something--even persistently--doesn't mean it's good for them, as anyone who's ever taken a small child down the cereal aisle of a grocery store knows. And let's consider exactly the identity of these investors. the ones pushing the issue are almost entirely union and state/local employee pension funds, all of who are in bed with the Democratic Party. Whether Bebchuk wants to admit it or not, he's carrying water for people who have a political agenda. They want to defund the Right by deterring corporate campaign contributions. (I freely admit I want to keep that spigot open. I have a dog in the fight between Democrats and Republicans, even if I'm not always that crazy about that dog.)
His second point is that "disclosure is necessary to ensure that directors and executives make political spending decisions that are consistent with shareholder interests." But the same is true of any spending decision. But the law has never required companies to disclose the minutae of spending at the minuscule level Bebchuk and his allies are demanding with respect to political decisions. Would we expect GM to disclose that some plant manager spent $250 on toner at Office Mart? On the one hand, Bebchuk's rulemaking petition claims that he and his allies "encourage the Commission to adopt ... a de minimis exception," but then they take it back by urging that the Commission set "an appropriately low threshold."
My bottom line is that this is bad policy and bad politics. With a 3-2 Democrat majority on the SEC, unfortunately, that may not be enough to stop this idea.