[Vision2020] Corporate Donations and the S.E.C.

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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April 24, 2013
Corporate Donations and the S.E.C. By THE EDITORIAL
BOARD<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/opinion/editorialboard.html>

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that triggered an avalanche of
corporate political spending also contained a proposal for greater public
disclosure from corporations that would prefer to write their checks in the
shadows. Transparency, the court advised, would let voters decide for
themselves “whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called
moneyed interests.”

Since that 2010 decision, corporate and Republican opposition has snuffed
out Congressional attempts to require donor transparency and
accountability. All the more compelling then that the Securities and
Exchange Commission, following an impressive petition campaign, is
considering a regulation mandating that publicly traded corporations
disclose all their political donations to their shareholders.

Corporate donations are not the full sum of the dark money universe, but
forcing publicly traded corporations into the sunlight would be an enormous
step toward facing the threat of political corruption posed by stealth
donations. The petition drive, under way for more than a year, has prompted
close to 500,000 comments, a vast majority favoring disclosure. A
disclosure regulation could be proposed by the S.E.C. officials in a matter
of weeks.

The fury of the opposition is already evident as trade associations like
the United States Chamber of Commerce issue alerts to members that free
speech rights are about to be trampled. Not according to Justice Anthony
Kennedy in Citizens United, who noted that “shareholder objections raised
through the procedures of corporate democracy” would provide accountability
by companies now free to hide donations through trade associations.

Mary Jo White, the new S.E.C. chairwoman, has promised dynamic changes in
corporate oversight. The looming disclosure fight provides a test.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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