February 2, 2013
Dear Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
It's long past time to end secret political spending by corporations. If they are afraid to have the public or their stockholders know how they are spending this money then they shouldn't be doing it. This is no different than the mafia buying political influence. When companies send their money overseas to avoid our taxes or send our jobs overseas to avoid wages and unions there is no excuse to help them hide their other activities that they are either ashamed of or afraid the public will find out about.
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.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Chris Scholfield