April 28, 2012
Dear members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
"Corporations are people" only in the sense that corporations are made up of people (shareholders, employees, etc.). But the decision makers in a corporation do not speak for all of the people in the corporation. The constitution guarantees the right of individual people to speak, and implicitly denies the right of one person to speak for another without authorization. Citizens United was decided incorrectly, but you have the authority to do something to improve the situation (although not enough to correct it).
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.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Jim Murdock