Reuters journalist Rob Cox: Shareholders could help reverse Citizens United

Reuters' Rob Cox explained Monday on MSNBC how two major U.S. companies could help offset the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision.

Bank of America and 3M will be giving their shareholder the chance to vote on a referendum on Tuesday and Wednesday that would prohibit the use of corporate funds for any political election or campaign.

"I think it's ironic that it's actually going to be up to corporate democracy to save democracy," Cox said. "That's sort of the point here and I'm not sure that shareholders will think the same way citizens do. They're going to go out there and vote on their own self-interest, which is 'what will this do for my company?'"

However, he noted that the proposed policy could actually be good for business.

"I'll give you an example. Target two years ago put $150,000 into a sort of PAC-like organization just after the Citizens United deal and that organization basically supported a pretty far right Republican candidate who was very anti-gay. It created a big problem. In fact, there was a huge boycott online."

Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:

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