November 26, 2012
Dear members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
I am writing to urge the SEC to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending.
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.
If the corporation is a to be considered "a person" under the constitution for free speech purposes, then it is reasonable to have the decision on what to say based on not only the board of directors and the executive management team, but also the shareholders and possibly also the employees. Just who is deciding how to spend the corporation's money on political ads and just how is this decision being made? There are a lot of stakeholders involved in this and my expectation is that most are not consulted at all. They certainly have the right to be able to at least find out what their corporation is doing with their money!
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Suford Lewis