July 25, 2013
Before the attached comment from Public Citizen (which I have read & agree with), allow me to out in a personal note. Each & every corporation, private, public, for-profit or not so much, MUST reveal their political spending. It cannot be considered proprietary information - it is not unique & developed by them for a specific purpose within the company. Not is it innocuous. If we are to have a non-facist ruling authority, transparency is paramount.
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.
Robyn Richards
Albuquerque, NM