The Corporate Voting Cartel
The Bull Moose Project's new report, The Corporate Voting Cartel: How to Stop Wall Street Weaponization of Americans' Retirement Portfolios, exposes how three Wall Street firms — BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street — have consolidated unprecedented control over American corporate governance, with the "Big Three" now owning roughly a quarter of the U.S. stock market and serving as the largest shareholder in approximately 90% of S&P 500 companies. Rather than reflecting the views of everyday investors, this enormous voting power is delegated to small in-house "stewardship" teams that have used it to push ESG and DEI agendas across corporate America.
To end this politicization without restricting Americans' access to low-cost index funds, the report calls for "mirror voting" — a market-friendly reform requiring passive funds to cast their shares in the same proportions as active, business-focused shareholders, holding passive funds to their own sales pitch of mirroring the market rather than distorting it.
The report rejects the industry-favored "pass-through voting" alternative as a false solution that would entrench proxy advisors and ideological pressure groups, and instead lays out a four-part federal roadmap:
SEC guidance establishing mirror voting as the expected standard for passive funds;
A presidential executive order on the Big Three as a sequel to President Trump's December 2025 order targeting politicized proxy advisors
Congressional legislation codifying mirror voting and rejecting the pass-through voting trap;
Congressional investigations and hearings into the Big Three's concentrated voting power, their stewardship teams, and the SEC's application of fiduciary duty.
