A loose coalition of Democratic elected officials, shareholder activists and pension funds has flooded the Securities and Exchange Commission with calls to require publicly traded corporations to disclose to shareholders all of their political donations, a move that could transform the growing world of secret campaign spending.

S.E.C. officials have indicated that they could propose a new disclosure rule by the end of April, setting up a major battle with business groups that oppose the proposal and are preparing for a fierce counterattack if the agency’s staff moves ahead. Two S.E.C. commissioners have taken the unusual step of weighing in already, with Daniel Gallagher, a Republican, saying in a speech that the commission had been “led astray” by “politically charged issues.”

A petition to the S.E.C. asking it to issue the rule has already garnered close to half a million comments, far more than any petition or rule in the agency’s history, with the vast majority in favor of it. While relatively few petitions result in action by the S.E.C., the commission staff filed a notice late last year indicating that it was considering recommending a rule.

In response to the growing pressure, House Republicans introduced legislation last Thursday that would make it illegal for the commission to issue any political disclosure regulations applying to companies under its jurisdiction. Earlier this month, the leaders of three of Washington’s most powerful trade associations — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable — issued a rare joint letter to the chief executives of Fortune 200 companies, encouraging them to stand against proxy resolutions and other proposals from shareholder activists demanding more disclosure of political spending.

Tax-exempt groups and trade associations spent hundreds of millions of dollars on political advertising during 2012 elections, but they are not required to disclose their donors. Evidence has mounted that a significant portion of the money came from companies seeking to intervene in campaigns without fear of offending their customers, their shareholders — or the lawmakers they target for defeat.

The debate over disclosure poses an early test for Mary Jo White, who was confirmed as the S.E.C.’s chairwoman this month. A new rule would pull the commission into a fierce political battle just as Ms. White and her staff will be wrangling with lawmakers and lobbyists over carrying out legislation imposing new rules on financial institutions.

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The number of public comments submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on a rulemaking petition to require corporations to disclose political spending to shareholders has now topped 500,000, according to the Corporate Reform Coalition.

The half-million threshold was announced on a Tuesday conference call organized by the coalition and featuring Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Campaign Legal Center founder Trevor Potter. The coalition, a group of good-government watchdogs, labor unions and institutional investors, is calling for the SEC to mandate disclosure of corporate political spending.

"It's impossible for the SEC to ignore the recordbreaking outpouring of investor concern and support for the disclosure rule," said Liz Kennedy, counsel for the liberal public policy and advocacy group Demos.

"The SEC has the simplest thing to do, which is to reaffirm what most Americans already believe -- and I think the law is pretty clear -- shareholders own the corporation. Executives work for those shareholders and will do what the shareholders tell them to do," Rep. Capuano said.

Capuano is the chief sponsor of legislation in Congress that, like the proposed rule, would require corporations to disclose political spending.

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Advocates of campaign finance reform are pushing the new chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make waves by exposing the political spending of corporations.
The Corporate Reform Coalition on Tuesday said 500,000 people, including more than 80 members of Congress, have signed a petition backing mandatory disclosure of political donations by publicly trade companies. They want SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White to champion the cause.
“It's time for the SEC to step up to the plate,” said New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

The SEC voted in December to place the disclosure proposal on its agenda and set an April deadline for issuing it. If the rules are approved, publicly traded companies would be required to disclose their political giving on annual statements to shareholders.

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Campaign-finance activists and some of the nation's biggest institutional investors are trying to exert fresh pressure on the Securities and Exchange Commission to force public companies to disclose their political spending. If successful, the move would dramatically increase public information about the corporate money that now flows secretly into trade associations and other groups active in elections.

The renewed push comes as the Senate draws closer to a vote to install former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White as SEC chairwoman. Last month, the Senate Banking Committee voted 21-1 to approve her nomination and she is expected to win confirmation when a full Senate vote is held in the coming weeks.

At the same time, companies holding annual meetings this spring face 126 shareholder resolutions encouraging them to reveal more about their campaign contributions and lobbying activity or calling on them to curb political spending, according to Heidi Welsh, executive director of Sustainable Investments Institute. She tracks shareholder proposals on social and environmental issues. Many come from investor activist groups and labor unions.

That's up from 61 such resolutions in 2010 – the year the Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling helped pave the way for unlimited corporate spending by corporations and unions.

The disclosure push is part of the continuing battle over corporate political spending in the post-Citizens United era. Trade associations and other tax-exempt groups that are not required to disclose their donors poured more than $300 million into the 2012 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors money in elections.

Some institutional investors argue political spending poses financial risks for shareholders. Leading business groups say the disclosure is unnecessary and motivated by partisan politics.

"I want to make sure the monies for these public companies are being used to benefit shareholders and are not being used to benefit political campaigns that may be a waste of money," said North Carolina State Treasurer Janet Cowell, a Democrat who oversees an $80 billion pension fund for public workers. She is part of the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending, a group of state treasurers and other public officials who support the SEC measure.

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ON Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee gave Mary Jo White, President Obama’s choice to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, a rousing show of support, voting 21 to 1 to send her nomination to the full Senate for a vote. Ms. White, who is likely to be confirmed as the S.E.C. chairwoman, will need that bipartisan backing as she takes on a host of challenges at the nation’s top financial regulator.

But if she really wants to make a difference, Ms. White, a former federal prosecutor, should tap into some of that good will in her first days in office and push forward a vital proposed rule on corporate disclosure that the S.E.C. has been considering for over a year and a half.

The reform, suggested in a petition to the S.E.C. by 10 legal scholars in August 2011, would be simple: it would mandate that publicly held corporations disclose their political spending. In the months since the petition was posted, the commission has received nearly half a million comments on it — more than on any other issue in its 79-year history — that have been overwhelming in favor of the proposal. (Typically, S.E.C. rule-making petitions get fewer than 100 comments.)

But despite this broad support from the investing public, experts in securities law, institutional money managers and numerous public officials, the S.E.C. has yet to write an official rule on which the commission can actually vote.

Were Ms. White to make this a priority on Day 1, there is little doubt that such a measure could be put in place. All that would be required would be a “yes” vote by Ms. White and two of the current four commissioners — two of whom are Republicans and two, Democrats.

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Local jurisdictions should take the lead in regulating politically active nonprofit organizations, according to a new report slated for publication today by New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending.

"State and muncipal governments should not wait for the IRS to enact reforms," asserts the report, an advance copy of which the Center for Public Integrity obtained.

"Regulations are needed immediately to close loopholes in the law which allow 501(c)(4) organizations to spend on elections without disclosing their donors and spending in the same manner as independent expenditure groups and political action committees," it continues.

The 29-page document assesses the increased political activity of so-called "social welfare" nonprofits in New York's congressional elections since the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which in part granted nonprofit corporations the ability to expressly advocate for the election or defeat of federal elections.

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A new campaign is beginning in Washington targeting the Securities and Exchange Commission over campaign finance.

Yes, that’s the SEC — not the FEC (the Federal Election Commission).

The SEC has been asked to require publicly traded companies to disclose their contributions to nonprofits, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA, which have spent millions of dollars on political ads without disclosing their donors.

The campaign includes ads in Washington’s subway system and trading cards with the pictures of the five SEC commissioners. The coalition of public officials and others is campaigning to pressure the SEC into enacting the disclose rule.

“This effort is going to be in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and the SEC commissioners are going to feel the pressure,” said New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, founder of the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending. “We may not see new rules implemented in 2012, but if we can get the SEC to signal that disclosure is on the way, big corporate donors will be much more likely to restrain their spending in the lead up to November.”

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Activists opposed to secret money in politics have stepped up a pressure campaign aimed at the Securities and Exchange Commission, targeting two major Washington, D.C., Metro stops with billboards and street demonstrators urging the SEC to adopt a new corporate disclosure rule.

Demonstrators will be converging on the Union Station and Tenleytown-AU Metro stations at rush hour starting this week to hand out “trading cards” featuring the five SEC commissioners. They will also be sporting sandwich boards calling on the agency to take action. A trio of bold, red and yellow billboards in each of the stations includes the message: “With Just 3 Votes, the SEC Can End Secret Corporate Spending in Our Elections.”

Organized by the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending, which represents public officials bent on curbing corporate election activity, the actions are part of an ongoing campaign to push the SEC to adopt a disclosure rule that would require publicly traded corporations to report all direct and indirect political spending to the SEC in public filings.

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Whether he wanted to be, Dan Cathy, the Bible-quoting president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A, has become a household name. So has his stance on same-sex marriage.

What people might not realize is the extent to which Chick-fil-A has funded organizations with radically anti-gay messages through its charitable arm, the WinShape Foundation, which was created by Chick-fil-A founder and chairman S. Truett Cathy in 1984. According to a July report from Equality Matters, a gay rights organization, the foundation donated nearly $2 million in 2010 to groups such as the Marriage & Family Foundation, the Family Research Council and Exodus International, which has helped "men and women surrender their sexual struggles to the Lordship of Jesus Christ" since 1976.

But Chick-fil-A isn't the only company with a conservative bent. Conservative activists are responsible for some of the products you use in your home. Koch Industries, for example, which manufactures products like Angel Soft toilet paper, Brawny Paper towels and Dixie cups plans to donate about $400 million to conservative groups such as the National Rifle Association, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, the National Right to Life Committee, Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, and the American Future Fund, Politico reported.

The founders of Koch Industries, brothers David and Charles Koch, have helped bankroll numerous Tea Party candidates through their advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity.

Meanwhile, you might be surprised to learn that Costco co-founder and chairman Jeffrey H. Brotman gave $77,550 in political contributions to Democrats and only $15,625 to Republicans. An additional $63,700 went to special interest groups, according to Newsmeat.org, which tracks donor spending.

Most people aren't aware of the extent to which their favorite companies play partisan politics, said Kate Coyne-McCoy, executive director of Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending (CAPS), a bipartisan organization dedicated to curbing the role of corporate spending in elections. What's more, public companies aren't obligated to disclose their political spending.

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There has never been a presidential election campaign like 2012. It will by far shatter records for spending - $1 billion worth already pledged on the Republican side and possibly nearly as much on the Democratic side.

It is not just the ungodly amount of spending (especially as you consider that the nation is still groping with economic recession). 2012 marks the intersection of the fallout of Citizens United unleashing unlimited anonymous funds, a corporate media industry that profits, even survives, by campaign spending so is relinquishing any actual "journalistic" responsibility, technology (internet) which has enabled propaganda and outright lies to overwhelm "facts"; and the greatest disparity between rich and poor, the dislocation of people who have been foreclosed or had to move to take on new jobs (have they checked their voter registration?).

Last July, we co-chaired a committee of ten corporate and securities law experts that submitted a rulemaking petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging the Commission to develop rules to require public companies to disclose their political spending. As of today, the petition has attracted massive support from a record number of comments filed with the SEC.

Altogether, as is indicated on the SEC’s webpage for comments filed on the petition, the SEC has received more than a quarter of million comments on the petition. An analysis of the comment file indicates that all except eight were supportive of the petition.

Of the filed comments, 259,801 came from individuals who expressed their views through one of six common types of letters received by the Commission. The submission of comments by such a large number of individuals was partly due to the work of the Corporate Reform Coalition, a group that includes institutional investors and public officials. While the 259,801 comments used standard form letters, each of them was separately submitted by one or more individuals who presumably were interested enough in the subject to file a comment with the SEC.

In addition to the 259,801 comments using form letters, the SEC received 487 “unique” comments on the petition. Of these comments, 5 came from institutional investors; 7 were submitted by government officials; 12 were submitted by researchers and nonprofits; 3 were submitted by other organizations such as religious groups; and 460 comments came from individuals who did not indicate an affiliation. Within this group of 487 unique comments, all but eight comments expressed support for the petition.

American companies are discovering the perils of politics as activists and public pension fund officials apply new pressure on corporations to disclose their political spending — or cease it entirely.

Companies holding their annual meetings this spring will face a record number of shareholder resolutions demanding companies reveal whether corporate funds have been spent on politics. A coalition that includes Public Citizen, Common Cause and other groups that favor campaign limits has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to require publicly traded companies to disclose campaign spending on their filings to regulators.

And in recent days, Wendy's and several of the nation's most recognizable companies have dropped their affiliation with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group linked to the spread of Stand Your Ground laws and state efforts to toughen voter identification rules. The companies' actions came after a civil rights group, ColorOfChange, spotlighted the firms' ties to ALEC.

Wendy's joined Coca-Cola, McDonald's, PepsiCo and other well-known consumer brands in cutting ties to ALEC.

The road to overturning Citizen’s United by constitutional amendment is a long one—it requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and then ratification by thirty-eight state legislatures. The DISCLOSE Act was re-introduced in the Senate this month but is almost certain to remain stuck in the mud. Meanwhile, corporations are dumping millions into the coffers of outside groups for the fall elections.

Some campaign reformers have thus turned their attention to the Securities and Exchange Commission, urging it to pass a rule that all publicly traded companies must disclose political spending to shareholders—this would reveal exactly what business interests are trying to influence the election, and in the eyes of most experts, lead to dramatically reduced corporate electioneering.

A coalition of reform groups gathered Monday morning to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission to require publicly traded companies to disclose contributions to independent groups engaged in electoral politics. The event in front of SEC headquarters continued efforts by reform groups and elected officials to fix disclosure loopholes opened and expanded by the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

"The SEC can do something about the fact that money is taking over the political process," said Bill de Blasio, the public advocate for New York City. "They can force publicly traded corporations to disclose their political spending. It's not a lot to ask to simply disclose what they're doing. The SEC has the power, but the SEC is not using the power."

A coalition of progressive, reform and labor organizations vowed on Monday to wreak economic and reputational damage on any company that gives corporate money to super PACs and other independent groups to sway the upcoming election. 

The groups -- including Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union andMoveOn.org -- are starting to monitor corporate political spending and plan to attack companies that play politics by organizing boycotts, diverting pension fund money from their stocks and rallying shareholders, advocates told reporters Monday.

Short of an outright ban of corporate money from elections, disclosure is perhaps the best antidote to the political influence of big business. Notably, since Super PACs disclose donor information, only one-half of one percent of all contributions to the most active Super PACs this campaign season came from publicly traded corporations, which are naturally sensitive to coming under attack for political activities.

Business interests instead prefer the type of electioneering practiced by nonprofits like the US Chamber of Commerce, which is planning a $50 million campaign to influence House and Senate races coast to coast this fall—and they won’t have to disclose where a single dollar came from.

Americans United for Change is offering a $25,000 reward to the first employee that leaks evidence of corporate political contributions to a nonprofit 501(c)(4) or trade organization, the group announced at a press conference this morning. The reward is part of a campaign by a coalition of organizations to raise the public profile of corporations to engage in political giving and encourage people to reveal the source of anonymous political funds.

“We will use every tool, whether it's actions among consumers, up to boycotts, whether it's shareholder actions, whether it's work form pension funds to use the power of pension funds to direct corporate America to change its way,” said Bill de Blasio, a New York City public advocate. “You name it, it’s on the table.” Speaking at the event were representatives fromCommon Cause, Health Care for America Now, Public Citizen, Corporate Reform Coalition, the Coalition for Accountability in Public Spending and Occupy Wall Street.

Though much of the focus was on Republican groups like the Karl Rove-linked Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said that Democratic groups that solicit corporate funds should beware as well. “We don’t want corporate money in the election process period, full stop,” Weissman said. “If you donate to Republican-leaning independent organization or trade association, we’re coming after you; if you give to a Democratic-leaning one, same to you.”