Gary Gensler, President Joe Biden’s pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, signaled Tuesday that the agency would raise pressure on corporations to disclose their political spending activities, a long-running tension between SEC officials, big business and Democrats.
At a Senate confirmation hearing, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) asked the nominee for the SEC’s chair role whether political contributions by publicly traded companies represented “material” information to investors and should be disclosed. In response, Gensler said there was growing investor appetite for the information.