April 28, 2012
Dear members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
I urge the SEC to please require publicly traded corporations to disclose all their political spending.
It is always in the public's and shareholders' best interest when they know how much money publicly traded corporations are contributing to political campaigns and to whom these contributions are going to.
The huge amounts of spending by corporations since Citizens United that allows for unlimited amounts of money to secretly be contributed to campaign funding has demonstrated why we need to have disclosure. In a very short time since the ruling it has created the most toxic environment in political campaigning that I have ever seen. Democracy as we know it is be threatened by this flood of secret cash.
This has got to stop. At least let the public be aware of how publicly traded corporations hide their political spending. It would make a big difference to me as a shareholder! As a federal agency, the SEC can require this of publicly traded corporations.
Sincerely,
Leslie L Young