April 28, 2012
Dear members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
The decision by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case was insane. Corporations are composed of people, the corporation is a business, are not people. The people who run and work for them have every opportunity to vote and contribute to elections as the individuals they are. But, the Supreme Court gave them more opportunity than "non-corporation citizens" have with this decision and therefore it it unbelieveably unfair. That is, they can act as individuals AND as corporations and that is just not fair. And, this is compounded by the fact that they are more often in favor of causes that favor the corporations (and the Repubicans that support them) than the citizens of this country.
That decision should be over-turned, but in the absence of such action, I am writing to urge the SEC to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending. It is not bad enough tht they can spend like a crazy person, but they can also hide what they do. Horrid!
Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed as to how much the corporation spends 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,
Elizabeth Nyand