What has become of one of the biggest corp gov improvements on the activist investing agenda? While proxy access isn't dead, it sure hasn't advanced far at all in the past year.

Relative to the energy and attention proxy access received in 2010 and 2011, when Dodd-Frank mandated it, the SEC proposed rules, and the DC District Court struck down those rules, proxy access has barely registered on investors' radar. Relative to the number of shareholder proposals it attracted in 2012, there was somewhat less action. Right now 2014 doesn't look much better.