November 9, 2013
"Big money," that funds groups like ALEC and can elect a president like GWBush in spite of the fact that the people of this country want someone else as president has got to be reined in. Big corporate money was reined in during Theodore Roosevelt's time with his "trust busting" and again during Franklin Roosevelt's time. He made numerous speeches against the power of corporate greed combined with the government. He said it equaled fascism. Bill Clinton took away any restriction to banks and wall street colluding to tank the economy and that's what Wall Street did - tank the economy. President Obama has to do what TR and FDR did.
I am writing to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending – and to do so this year.
“Dark money” groups that accept contributions from corporations, but are not required to publicly identify their corporate donors, spent millions of dollars during the 2012 elections. It is a scandal that money from publicly traded corporations – which belongs to investors – can be secretly spent to distort our democracy.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission created the loophole that enables this secret spending, but the SEC has the authority to close it.
Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed as to how much corporations spend 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.
Jean Toles
Portland, OR