Sponsors (16)
The bill keeps SBA resources and staff focused on small-business assistance and reduces ambiguity about permitted uses, but it does so by restricting use of SBA touchpoints for voter-registration activities—reducing convenient registration opportunities for residents and adding programmatic trade-offs and complexity.
Small-business owners will see SBA programs and staff remain focused on core business functions (lending, counseling, disaster assistance) rather than being tasked with voter-registration duties, reducing administrative burden on business owners and SBA staff.
Businesses, grantees, and program recipients will face clearer, more predictable rules because SBA contracts and grants must explicitly bar using funds or assistance to facilitate voter registration, reducing legal and administrative ambiguity about permitted uses of assistance.
SBA-funded programs are less likely to experience mission creep into non-business activities like voter registration, helping ensure program resources and staff time remain dedicated to business assistance and economic support.
Residents—especially people in underserved communities—will have fewer convenient voter-registration opportunities because SBA-funded outreach, grantees, and local partners may be barred from offering registration assistance during business or community outreach.
The bill constrains executive-branch flexibility to coordinate or expand voter-registration efforts through federal agency touchpoints, which could limit future cross-agency initiatives to increase registration access.
A carve-out for certain Section 7 loan recipients creates unequal rules across SBA programs, adding administrative complexity and potential confusion for applicants and recipients about what activities are permitted.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Bars the SBA and recipients of its program funding (except certain loan recipients) from facilitating voter registration or directing others to do so unless Congress authorizes it.
Introduced April 17, 2025 by Roger Williams · Last progress April 17, 2025
Prohibits the Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) and entities that receive SBA program funding or assistance from facilitating voter registration unless federal law specifically authorizes it. New SBA contracts and agreements must bar recipients from using SBA-provided assistance to help with voter registration, and current recipients may only do so if their assistance terms explicitly permit it. Recipients of loans or loan guarantees under 15 U.S.C. 636 (section 7 of the Small Business Act) are excluded from this restriction. States that any Presidential Executive Order cannot require the SBA to facilitate voter registration or conflict with this prohibition, and expresses Congress’s view that voter-registration facilitation is outside the SBA’s mission and statutory authority.