February 1, 2013
Dear Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
For far too long corporations have exerted undue influence over Congress and our elections. Democracy has been subverted so that the will of the American people has been rendered almost irrelevant-- Congress makes decisions based on the influence of their corporate backers and lobbyists. Voters are swamped with misleading campaign ads that are secretly paid for by industry and billionaires. The Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United decision has made an already bad situation worse, opening the floodgates for corporate spending to influence every aspect of our government. Even the Supreme Court made that decision based on the premise that such spending would be disclosed to the public, which has not been the case.
So I strongly support the SEC issuing a rule in the near future that would require publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their spending on political activities.
Both shareholders and the public deserve to know how much a given corporation spends on politics (directly and through intermediaries), and which candidates are being promoted or attacked.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Carolyn Crow