February 3, 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.
Thank you for considering my comment.
A corporation "may" have the right to spend shareholder's money to influence legislation that is (believed to be) in those shareholders' interests. However, the shareholders have the right to know how and to whom that money is being disbursed.
Furthermore, the shareholders have the right to know if the corporation's executives and board of directors are instead spending the shareholders' money to influence legislation that does more to improve the wealth of the executives and board than the wealth of the shareholders.
Sincerely,
Marc Rogge