Remember that moment during one of the 2016 presidential debates when the candidates engaged in a deep and provocative discussion about the laws and regulations that apply to public companies? For days, the country was swept up in matters of corporate governance. You couldn’t hop into a taxi or drop by the water cooler without engaging in a debate over board declassification, total shareholder return, proxy advisory firms, or Item 201(e) of Regulation S-K – and how we had to get those issues right in order to secure the future of the republic.

Policymakers need to address the drastic decline of public companies in the United States over the last two decades.