May 16, 2014
Dear Securities and Exchange Commission,
I am writing to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a rule requiring publicly traded companies to publicly disclose all their political spending.
Shareholders, as owners of the publicly trades companies they own, should have the right to know what their management is doing, this includes the right to know their company’s political spending. Shareholder should be able to know if their company’s political spending matchers their values, if its political spending will undermine the USA’s democracy, and if their company’s political spend may expose it to public boycotts. Unfortunately, such corporate transparency is lacking.
The SEC should require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to shareholders. This would allow shareholders to monitor risks associated with political spending and make our markets more democratic .
Thank you,
Russ Rybicki