February 9, 2012
Securities and Exchange Comm.
Dear Securities and Exchange Comm.,
The unregulated campaign money unleashed by the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision and 2012's crop of flush PACs, many of them intent on misinforming the public for the personal gain of their wealthy and corporate mavens.
We clearly cannot rely on lawmakers to fix this problem, but the SEC has the authority and the mandate to do so. At a minimum, the American people deserve to know who is bankrolling the misinformation in election advertising. This was the intention of the Supreme Court majority in the Citizen's United case, and anything less is a travesty.
The Securities and Exchange Commission should issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending.
Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed about corporate political spending and which candidates it is being used to promote or attack. Disclosures should be posted promptly on the SEC’s web site.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Jason Yust