April 24, 2013
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.
As a shareholder in a number of public companies, I consider a company's political donations to be information that is relevant to my investment decision. As an investor, I would like to know how the corporation's resources are being deployed, and I may change my choice regarding where to invest if I see that management of a corporation is deploying its resources toward political contributions that reflect management's personal political views rather than the best interests of the corporation.
“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 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.
Both 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.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Javed Qadrud-Din
Palo Alto, CA