But until recently most voting was class voting, with each party guaranteed a solid base among its natural supporters.
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The company is out raising money again, and Mr. Goldberg said his investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, support creating a new dual-class voting structure that gives him control after the round closes as long as he stays CEO.
W. Scripps Co. (nyse: SSP - news - people ), are all insulated from unsolicited offers because they each have one class of voting shares held only by the families, as well as a separate class of nonvoting stock distributed to the public.
On June 1, Sprint announced it was reducing its voting interest in Clearwire to 49.8 percent from about 54 percent previously by surrendering Class b voting shares.
Following the IPO, Accel had 135.7 million Class A shares and 7.9 million of the super-voting Class B shares.
Class B shares have ten times the voting power of Class A shares, however only the latter can be publicly traded on the Nasdaq.
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Favoring the middle class or the upper class is an ideal battle line for the Democrats, since the middle class holds more voting levers.
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Before selling last week, Moskovitz converted 7.5 million super-voting Class B shares into Class A shares so that he could sell on the Nasdaq.
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Ms. MacElree ended up resigning from some trusts -- deferring to her relatives and shielding herself against potential liability -- while voting the Class B shares she owned against the deal.
The creation of Class B super-voting shares allowed the Sulzberger-Ochs family to maintain an all-but-unchallengeable control of the company while still allowing it to tap the public markets for capital it needed for expansion.
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And it is those crown jewels that some accuse Tony Ridder of sullying in his recent quest for increased profitability, which is driven to some extent by the vulnerability created by the company's single-voting-class shareholder arrangement.
The Class A shares offered to the public carry one-tenth of the voting power of the Class B shares held by team ownership.
They set up two classes of stock--a large block of nonvoting Class A stock (which was willed to the charitable Ford Foundation) and a much smaller block of Class B stock that had voting rights (and was willed to the family).
In the mid 1930s, Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, set up the two-class structure as part of their estate planning: the charitable Ford Foundation received most of the shares, but they kept a small block of Class B shares that had voting rights, thus assuring family control.
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Although they own just 4% of Ford 's (nyse: F - news - people )common stock, the family controls 40% of the voting power through its Class B shares.
The Ford family retained the large voting bloc by keeping its own class of shares established when it went public in 1956.
The companies he controls--Hollinger Inc. and closely held Ravelston -- have just an 18% economic interest in Hollinger International through Class B shares that have ten times the voting rights of common stock.
In total, holders of Class B stock control approximately 98% of the voting power of outstanding stock.
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The Ford family retained the 40% voting control in the automaker because of a separate class of shares established when it went public in 1956.
One possibility: Kerkorian hopes to gain enough influence at Ford to eventually get rid of the Class B shares, which gives the Ford family 40% voting control despite owning just 4% of the company's stock.
They appear to be losing their grip on voting blocs that once were bedrock supporters: working-class whites, and especially working-class white men, whose union roots made their parents and grandparents loyal Democrats, as well as rural citizens and senior citizens, whose gratitude for New Deal economic and modernization programs pulled them to the Democrats.
There are 71 million Class B shares, about three-fourths of which are held in a voting trust.
After the transaction, Liberty owns 18, 159, 752 common shares and 12, 799, 999 Class B common shares, which gives the company 22% equity control and 57% voting control.
's dual-class share structure, which allows CEO Murdoch to control the company through the 40 percent of voting shares he controls through a family trust.
Their study followed the voting behavior of the forty-five per cent of white Americans who identify themselves as working class.
Before closing up shop for 2007, the House of Representatives Wednesday abandoned its strict budgetary rules, voting 352-64 to keep the AMT from rippling across America's upper-middle class.
He voted for the Class Action Fairness Act only after it was clear it would pass, for example, and did so after voting for several Democrat-proposed amendments that would have gutted the bill.
The Sulzberger family controls 88% of the voting power at the New York Times Co. while owning only 17% of the company's class A shares.
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