February 4, 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.
A democracy is based upon public participation. Whilst it is impossible to replicate the level of public discourse seen in Ancient Greek democracy, requiring all expenditures by public companies as political contributions helps everyone to see the way in which influence is being applied via the spending of capital gained via commercial transactions that may run counter to the consumer's political interest.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Jeffrey K. Williams
Hermosa Beach, CA
Sincerely,
Jeff Williams