Hey Mitt: Sell or Tell

On Wednesday, SEIU, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, People For the American Way, Public Campaign, Public Citizen and The Social Equity Group, sent a letter to the Deputy Director of the United States Office of Government Ethics to request a review of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's financial disclosures.

The law requires candidates for federal office to disclose their financial holdings so that the public can identify potential conflicts of interest and personal economic priorities. However, Mitt Romney has refused to disclose most of his stock holdings. This lack of disclosure undermines public confidence in government, denies voters the facts they need to make an informed decision in the 2012 presidential election, and violates both the spirit and the letter of the law.

The letter reads in part:

We are writing because we are concerned that presidential candidate Mitt Romney's financial disclosures are not in compliance with the Ethics in Government Act, 5 U.S.C. App. § 101 et seq., and do not provide the information the public has a right to know about candidates' stock holdings...

...Candidate Romney is an extraordinarily wealthy person, and much of that wealth appears to be invested in businesses. What little information is public about candidate Romney's holdings establish that he owns a significant - if not a controlling - interest in a wide variety of operating companies that directly do business with the United States government or that would directly benefit or be harmed by regulatory policies of the executive branch.

So, the question for Mitt Romney is: sell or tell. He can sell any financial holdings that could cause a conflict of interest (as Hillary Clinton did in 2008) or he can simply tell the American people what companies he has investments in.

It's up to you, Mitt.

Read full letter here (pdf).