April 2, 2013
After "Citizens United" passed, The USA became a corporate owned country. They own us. Make no mistake, we are horrified by this decision and what has transpired since corporations became "people" and these people became secretive and corrupt. Personally, I WANT TO KNOW who is contributing to harming my health (Monsanto) or to the harming of our planet (oil companies) or cuts in our safety net. I will absolutely stop doing all business with them/and or buying their products. I don't care what the products are - they are not the only ones providing these services and I will find the companies that care about us and the earth.
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.
K McCarthy
Morro Bay, CA