February 9, 2012
Securities and Exchange Comm.
Dear Securities and Exchange Comm.,
I have been worried about the influence of corporate money on our electoral process for years. Corporations are not people, they are legal entities establiched for a number of valid business reasons. They should have the right to own property, enter into contracts, etc. They should not have first ammendment rights, and should not be able to spend money influencing political decisions.
The Citizen's Unitied decision has made this problem worse.
Coprporations should not be able to spend money on politics. Howver, reversing that is not within the authority of the SEC. However, the SEC can require publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending. This would be valuable in mitigating the harm to our democracy that the Citizen's United ruling has done.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Peter Jahn