Michael Hiltzik: The SEC is trying to stifle shareholders' right to challenge corporate managements

For all the lip service that corporate executives pay to the principle of honoring shareholder rights and interests, it's not uncommon for them to signal that their lives would be easier if they didn't have to deal with busybody investors.

That's the subtext of a pair of rules the Securities and Exchange Commission is pondering that would "limit public-company investors' ability to hold corporate insiders accountable," according to SEC Commissioner Robert J. Jackson Jr.

So said Jackson, one of the two Democratic members of the commission, when he voted against the proposed rules in November.

The SEC majority doesn't see the rules the same way. They describe the rules as "modernizing" the process by which shareholders can submit proposals for votes at corporate annual meetings, and ensuring that institutional investors get the most accurate and objective