February 1, 2013
Dear Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
It's long past time to end secret political spending by corporations.
So I strongly support the SEC issuing a rule in the near future that would require publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their spending on political activities.
Both shareholders and the public deserve to know how much a given corporation spends on politics (directly and through intermediaries), and which candidates are being promoted or attacked.
The fact that corporations do not want this to become public indicates to me that there is information that is hidden and used to influence representatives. In a democracy information needs to be available to voters so that a vote can be cast. In an oligarchy only a few powerful people need to know. Is democracy becomming defunct.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
E Lynn Barghout