January 12, 2013
The integrity of our democracy is truly in peril as a result of corporate and wealthy donors meddling in 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 – 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 HORRIBLE 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.
Corporations should NOT be allowed to contribute to politics. Doing so is a travesty to our democracy. If they are, however, 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. I am not in favor of political spending by any companies in which I invest, though you are certainly aware that many 401k plans invest in collections of many corporations. I cannot easily take out the ones I don't like, especially since investing is not my specialty.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Christine Wooddell
Madison, WI