July 25, 2013
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.
Corporations want to be treated as people? Well, people have limits on how much they can contribute to political campaigns...and those contributions are a matter of public record. why should corporations have a different set of rules on this, and yet still be considered "people?"
Generally, when an organization or corporation does not want public disclosure of their actions - it is because those actions are nefarious, dastardly, and inimical to the interests of the public at large...and they do not wish to be held accountable to the public for those actions.
“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.
Angela Bridgman
Saylorsburg, PA