August 4, 2012
I am deeply concerned about the influence of corporate money on our electoral process. In fact, I think that it is detrimental to our nation's existence as a democracy long admired by many other nations. We have been proud in the past that our political system has been relatively uncorrupted, but the Citizens United decision has spawned its own kind of insidious corruption into our political process.
In particular, I am dismayed and angered that, because of this Supreme Court's ruling, publicly traded corporations can spend investors' money on political activity in secret. I think that it would be better to limit political spending by large and powerful corporations to donations of $5000 to $10,000, but until that change can be made, I write to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending - to whom and how much.
Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed as to how much the corporation spends 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 the comments of those of us who are shareholders in these corporations through our 401k or 403b retirement accounts.
Nancy Sagafi-nejad
TX