Obama Should Have Overpaid CEOs Shaking

AFSCME and CtW Investment Group have been particularly active shareholders in seeking major change, including the removal of top senior executives and board members of several major financial firms that were at the root of the subprime mortgage meltdown.

"Our expectation is that the administration is going to be strongly supportive of meaningful executive pay reform," Garland says. "That ranges from the say-on-pay bill to other means of getting pay right and linked to long-term sustainable value creation. Wall Street financial firms in general are clearly going to continue to be a focus."

Executive pay reforms are gaining traction across Capitol Hill.

As part of the U.S. Treasury's $700 billion bailout package that is still being tweaked each day, the government is investing $250 billion into banks through the purchase of preferred shares. As a condition for accepting the capital, however, the banks are subject to rules such as getting the Treasury's approval to increase the dividend on its stock as well as scaling back executive compensation packages.

The curbs involve claw back provisions, limits to golden parachute packages and tax deductions on executive compensation, and curtailing pay that incentivizes excessive risk already in the bank bailout package.

Indeed, taxpayers want to make sure that they are not footing the bill for billions of dollars in Wall Street bonuses, particularly in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Last month Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) asked the CEOs of the nine largest banks receiving capital from the Treasury for information regarding executive compensation. Perhaps more dauntingly, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo just a day later sent letters to the same nine banks, including Citigroup (C Quote), Bank of America (BAC Quote), JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote) and Morgan Stanley (MS Quote) to scrutinize bonus payments to senior management.