Lucas
Corporate conservatives are attacking our campaign to stop corporations from secretly distorting elections via front groups and shell companies.
They’re calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to ignore Public Citizen (more about that below) and the more than 600,000 people like you (including many investors) who have called on the SEC to bring corporate dark money into the light.
To make sure the SEC knows that the public — regardless of political affiliation — stands strong against secret corporate spending, here are two things you can do right now.
1. Send a message supporting transparency of corporate political spending to the SEC today.
2. Read my latest blog post about this ploy to smear our transparency efforts.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee, specifically mentioned Public Citizen in his attack on SEC disclosure.
Here’s what he said:
"... Public Citizen ... is spearheading outside efforts to pressure the SEC to adopt a political disclosure rule."
We can’t take all the credit, but thanks for noticing our hard work.
"... Public Citizen, a group with a history of calling for investigations of groups organized under section 501(c)(4) ..."
Issa means 501(c)(4) groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity? Guilty as charged — with pride.
"Public Citizen has a history of demanding that the IRS and the FEC investigate tax-exempt groups."
To protect taxpayers by making sure our tax dollars don’t wind up subsidizing partisan corporate propaganda? Absolutely.
Issa’s attempts to marginalize our campaign and tie it to non-related issues (he’s alleging that the effort to require disclosure of corporate campaign contributions is somehow tied to the controversy over IRS review of some organizations' applications for nonprofit status) cannot go unchallenged.
The fact is, 77 percent of Americans — across the political spectrum — support disclosure of political spending.
If the likes of Walmart, Exxon Mobil, Bank of America and Monsanto are using their corporate billions to distort our democracy, the shareholders who own those companies (i.e., you and me) should be able to find out and hold those corporations accountable.
Tell the SEC to require disclosure of corporate political spending.
Thanks for all you do,
Rick Claypool
Public Citizen’s Online Action Team
action@citizen.org
P.S. Learn more about this attack on our campaign in my post on Public Citizen’s blog.