January 31, 2012
Securities and Exchange Commission
Dear Commission,
Right now, Super PACs don't have to disclose their unlimited corporate donations.
If corporate personhood derives from the stockholders, one would expect that publicly-held corporations (at least) would solicit stockholder input regarding political contributions and would report those contributions to their own stockholders.
On checking the annual reports of the corporations in which I own stock, none of them do either of those.
FASB requires that cash contributions be expensed in the current year and that non-cash contributions be fairly valued but FASB does not require that contributions be labeled as such in an income and expense report. They may be freely combined with marketing or PR expenses and hidden from stockholders.
That's why I'm joining with the 14 United States senators who formally asked you to use your regulatory authority to require that corporations disclose their spending in elections.
SEC: Exercise your regulatory authority to require public disclosure of corporate political contributions.
Sincerely,
Robert Cruder