July 25, 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.
“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.
Continuing to allow corporations to secretly fund political campaigns can only be viewed as turning a blind eye to a practice that reeks of corruption. By requiring disclosure the SEC would be taking a big step to remove the tarnish from these practices. Failing to do so would make the SEC complicit in moving the American political infrastructure further away from democracy, and indicate that SEC does not consider back room quid pro quo and influence peddling unacceptable.
Sincerely,
Thank you for considering my comment.
Aner Moss
Venice, CA