September 7, 2012
Dear members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
I am writing to urge your full support for transparency in corporate political contributions. This current election cycle with its shadowy PACs and secret contributions threatens to undermine public faith in the democracy our forefathers fought to create and that the best of our elected representatives and corporate leaders have worked to maintain until now.
Shareholders like myself and the public at large need to know the truth about how much our publicly traded corporations spend on campaigns and political advertising, and which candidates are being promoted or attacked. The current climate of secrecy is not only bad for our democracy but bad for business because rumors of secret spending by a few publicly traded corporations cast suspicion on the many companies fulfilling their obligations of full disclosure to shareholders and the SEC.
I urge the SEC to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political contributions, with such disclosures to be posted promptly on the SEC's web site.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Joelle Brink