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   From: democrat-criminals@mail.house.gov   
      
   Conservative groups are filing more proposals implying that companies   
   working with LGBTQ organizations could become the next Bud Light   
      
   Conservative groups are increasingly asking company shareholders to   
   scrutinize LGBTQ-themed marketing and public relations campaigns, hoping   
   to open another avenue of pressure on businesses’ social positions.   
      
   Target, Mondelez and Dell are among companies expected to hold votes on   
   such shareholder proposals soon, while others have already done so this   
   year.   
      
   Still, getting a vote isn’t the same as winning it. Levi Strauss   
   shareholders, for example, last month overwhelmingly voted “no” on a   
   proposal that the clothing company create a committee to determine whether   
   “public and politically divisive positions,” including its work with LGBTQ   
   organization Human Rights Campaign, had affected its financial   
   sustainability.   
      
   And companies including Walmart and Verizon have argued successfully to   
   the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent weeks that they don’t   
   need to hold votes on the proposals at all.   
      
   However, the propositions are becoming both more numerous and better   
   constructed. And they are drawing energy from the recent backlash to   
   corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, often invoking the   
   damaging boycott of Bud Light last year over a collaboration with a   
   transgender social-media personality. Best Buy recently wound up making   
   assurances to the authors of one shareholder proposal to head it off.   
      
   “The argument isn’t new, but the tactics are new and they’re amping them   
   up,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive of LGBTQ rights   
   group Glaad. Many brands have recently approached Glaad seeking advice on   
   how to respond to these proposals, Ellis said.   
      
   National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank that   
   owns shares in a range of companies, has nearly doubled the number of   
   proposals it files each year to around 60 in 2022 and 2023 from about 30   
   in 2021, according to Scott Shepard, the group’s general counsel and   
   director of its Free Enterprise Project, which writes the proposals.   
      
   “Our goal is to get companies to return to their fiduciary duties, which   
   is to say, not to put the partisan policy preferences of executives or of   
   the executives of the giant investment houses first,” Shepard said.   
      
   New twist on a long history   
   Shareholders have long proposed measures advocating a range of social   
   causes, including liberal priorities on climate emissions, plastic waste   
   and racial justice. The results are rarely binding, but just holding a   
   vote can spotlight company practices and create pressure to change.   
      
   Many of the conservative activist groups’ recent proposals have critiqued   
   corporate diversity and sustainability efforts. These groups are driven,   
   in part, by a belief that liberal interests have historically dominated   
   shareholder activism, they said.   
      
   The proposals that target companies’ work with LGBTQ groups, and related   
   messaging efforts, call those activities partisan and divisive,   
   particularly when they touch on transgender issues.   
      
   National Center for Public Policy Research, or NCPPR, late last year   
   submitted a proposal asking electronics retailer Best Buy to assess   
   whether it was hurting its business through partnerships with and   
   donations to various LGBTQ advocacy groups, such as Human Rights Campaign,   
   that the proposal said advocate teaching “radical gender theory” to   
   minors.   
      
   “Why are Best Buy shareholders funding the efforts to spread an ideology   
   seeking to mutilate the reproductive organs of children before they finish   
   puberty?” the proposal asked.   
      
   Such proposals are pushed by fringe actors and use “inflammatory,   
   offensive and straight-up inaccurate rhetoric,” said Shawnie Hawkins,   
   senior director of HRC’s Workplace Equality Program.   
      
   Best Buy convinced NCPPR to withdraw its proposal after the retailer’s   
   legal counsel assured the group that it would screen future donations by   
   its employee affinity groups to ensure they would not support the causes   
   that NCPPR “identified as concerning.” The exchange was reported earlier   
   by NBC.   
      
   Best Buy hasn’t changed its policy regarding LGBTQ advocacy groups,   
   according to a spokeswoman. The company itself donates almost exclusively   
   to one group in any given area, such as Human Rights Campaign in the case   
   of LGBTQ issues, she said. Best Buy will continue to grant its employee   
   affinity groups discretion in allocating their own donations, she added.   
      
   The retailer may not have put the matter entirely behind it, however. The   
   Office of New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli wrote Best Buy in   
   April expressing concern that its response to the shareholder proposal   
   could be seen as a departure from its “stated commitment to policies and   
   practices that promote inclusivity and support for the LGBTQ+ community.”   
      
   The comptroller’s office serves as trustee of the New York State Common   
   Retirement Fund, which invests in Best Buy.   
      
   The comptroller’s office and the retailer are discussing the matter,   
   according to their spokespeople.   
      
   The specter of Bud Light   
   Beyond filing proposals more frequently, these shareholder groups have   
   also learned to narrow initiatives to better meet SEC guidelines and head   
   off companies’ arguments that their practices are standard business   
   operations, or that the proposals’ claims are misleading, said attorney   
   Sanford Lewis, who has for decades represented shareholder groups   
   including investment firms, pension funds and nonprofit organizations such   
   as the Sierra Club Foundation.   
      
   “The conservative groups have gotten significantly better this year at   
   navigating those rules,” Lewis said.   
      
   “They’re probably not going to get huge support for these things, but it   
   gives them a platform in the media, essentially, and forces the company to   
   debate the issue,” he added.   
      
   Mondelez is set to hold a vote this month on a proposal from the National   
   Legal and Policy Center, or NLPC, a conservative organization that   
   describes its mission as promoting ethics in public life, asking the   
   snack-food company to evaluate the risks and consequences of its   
   associations with “external organizations.”   
      
   The proposal focuses on marketing campaigns tying the Mondelez cookie   
   brand Oreo to LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG and lists positions from that   
   organization that it considers “militant,” including opposition to laws   
   that would prohibit medical treatments for transgender individuals under   
   the age of 18.   
      
   “It is critical the Board of Mondelez International focus on its own   
   vulnerabilities before they become a liability,” the proposal reads.   
      
   Mondelez maintains careful protections against all risks, including those   
      
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