January 15, 2013
We need corporate transparency to help prevent the corrupting influence of secret money pouring in to our political system. If the corporations are proud of the positions they take with their shareholders money they should want their shareholders and the public to know what they have done.
Our democracy works with an informed electorate, and has been weakened by the misguided Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court. You have the power to do what is right for our country, and we need you to use that power NOW.
I am writing to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending – and to do so this year.
“Dark money” groups that accept contributions from corporations, but are not required to publicly identify their corporate donors, spent millions of dollars during the 2012 elections. It is a scandal that money from publicly traded corporations – which belongs to investors – can be secretly spent to distort our democracy.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission created the loophole that enables this secret spending, but the SEC has the authority to close it.
Both shareholders and the public must 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 considering my comment.
Reg Jones
Bennington, VT