April 28, 2012
Dear members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
I am writing to urge the SEC to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending.
Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed as to how much the corporation spends on politics and which candidates are being promoted or attacked. Disclosures should be posted promptly on the SEC's web site.
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Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. As such, their books - ESPECIALLY their political contributions - should be available to, at least, their shareholders.
A condition of licensing of public corporations is that they serve the public good in some way. As such, their political involvement (affecting ALL the public) should at least be made known -- AND STRINGENTLY REGULATED.
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Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
William Schmidt