April 24, 2013
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.
Too many political groups accept contributions from corporations, but are not required to publicly identify their corporate donors. These PACs spend millions of dollars to influence our votes on Election Day. It is outrageous that money from publicly traded corporations — which belongs to investors — can be spent to distort our democracy and that this spending can continue in secret. We need transparency in our elections. We need to shed some sun on these "dark money" groups.
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. Indeed, the Supreme Court asserted that the disclosure of all spending on elections as a necessary part of considering money as a form of speech.
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.
Sincerely,
Arthur Riss