February 1, 2013
Dear Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
It's long past time to end secret political spending by corporations.
So I strongly support the SEC issuing a rule in the near future that would require publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their spending on political activities.
Both shareholders and the public deserve to know how much a given corporation spends on politics (directly and through intermediaries), and which candidates are being promoted or attacked.
Personally I think this is only a start though. As a stockholder, I think there should be a provision for shareholders to opt out of funding political causes and candidates altogether, perhaps by a box to check on the annual proxy statement, and receive their share of the money that would be spent as an extra dividend instead, perhaps to be spent on political causes of their own or on anything else they may choose. It goes without saying that mutual funds, involving multiple stocks (of which some may even make donations for causes contradicting those of others) should automatically "check the box," instructing all companies they invest in to return political set asides to the funds and their investors as an extra dividend.
Indeed, money taken out of a stockholder's share of profits to give to politics, without the stockholder's express permission, amounts to theft. Let's let it be identified as such in law as well as in fact.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
James Dorr