February 10, 2012
Securities and Exchange Comm.
Dear Securities and Exchange Comm.,
The U.S. Chamber uses corporate money to defeat the candidates I support. It angers me that the Chamber and corporations take the profits from the products I buy, and use them, not to improve their products but, to subvert American democracy. The corporations I own, through retirement funds and mutual funds, are not accountable. They fail to do what citizens want them to do. We want them out of the political system. We want their lobbyists to be silenced. At a minimum the SEC should ask them to report their behemoth expenditures to corrupt the three branches of government.
In particular, I am appalled that, because of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, publicly traded corporations can conceal expenditures of shareholder funds on politics.
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.
Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed about corporate political spending and which candidates it is being used to promote or attack. Disclosures should be posted promptly on the SEC’s web site.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Linda Bricker