Obama calls for greater shareholder voice

INDIANAPOLIS, April 11 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Friday called on lawmakers to pass legislation forcing corporations to hold a shareholders' vote on executive compensation.

The presidential hopeful pointed to a study by USA Today that found that the top 50 U.S. chief executive officers were paid an average of $15.7 million last year.

"This isn't just about expressing outrage," Obama said. "It's about changing a system where bad behavior is rewarded -- so that we can hold CEOs accountable, and make sure they're acting in a way that's good for their company, good for our economy, and good for America, not just good for themselves."

The legislation is aimed at restoring "a measure accountability and restraint to a system that has spun out of control in recent years" by giving shareholders a non-binding vote on a company's executive compensation plan.

"So what we need to do is restore balance to our economy and put in place rules of the road to make competition fair, and open, and honest," Obama said. "One place we can start is by restoring common sense to executive pay."