March 15, 2012
Dear Securities and Exchange Commission,
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 as to how much a corporation spends on politics and which candidates they are promoting or attacking. Disclosures should be posted promptly on the SEC’s web site.
Thank you for considering my comment.
I personally do not believe that corporations are people and therefore do not merit the same freedom of speech as human beings. A corporation is property - and a public corporation is the property of the stockholders. It is not an extra bank account for its board of directors or the executives who run the corporation. If the executive officers or the members of the board of directors of a corporation wish to express their political views, they should reach into their own deep pockets for the money to do so.
In this day and age most people own some stock by way of 401K and IRA accounts. The ownership is too large and too diverse for any CEO to presume to represent that ownership politically. I contend that corporate political contributions are a misuse of stockholders money.
Sincerely,
Margaret Hardy-Mitchell
Wooster, OH