January 12, 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission, to serve all our futures, should issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to disclose all their political spending publicly, not at some vague future date, but this year.
Contributions from corporations that are not required to publicly identify their corporate donors resulted in millions of dollars of hidden influence during the 2012 elections. It is depressing and dangerous that money from publicly traded corporations can be hidden from view and bend our polity away democracy and towards plutocracy and oligarchy.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission makes this secret spending possible; the SEC could serve us all, not just privileged wealth, by using its the authority to close it.
Shareholders and the public should be fully informed as to how much corporations spend on politics and which candidates are being promoted or attacked. Disclosures should be posted promptly on the SEC’s web site.
Thank you for reading; I hope you will also think hard about helping to bring the US back to a true democracy.
Susan Anderson
Boston, MA