Sponsors (16)
Official title: To limit the authority of the Small Business Administration to facilitate access to voter registration, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 17, 2025 by Roger Williams · Last progress April 17, 2025
The bill prioritizes preventing use of SBA resources for voter-registration (strengthening program focus and legal boundaries) at the cost of reducing convenient voter-registration access points and adding compliance burdens for grantees and partners.
Small businesses, SBA staff, grantees, and taxpayers face clearer limits on using SBA resources for voter-registration activities, reducing risk of improper use or diversion of federal funds and staff time.
The bill clarifies and centralizes authority so only Congress or existing federal law can authorize SBA involvement in voter registration, providing legal clarity for the agency and recipients.
Small-business owners retain an SBA focused on core services (loans, counseling), helping preserve program effectiveness and priority support for small businesses.
Voters, and community partners who host or use SBA events, will lose convenient legal channels to offer or access voter-registration services, reducing registration access points.
SBA grantees, contractors, and state/local partners will face added compliance requirements and administrative costs to implement and enforce the new prohibitions.
The restriction could constrain future interagency or executive initiatives that would use federal touchpoints to boost voter participation, limiting policy options to increase turnout.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits the SBA and covered recipients from facilitating voter registration unless Congress authorizes such activity, and requires contracts to bar that use of SBA assistance.
Stops the Small Business Administration (SBA) and entities receiving SBA program assistance (except certain loan recipients) from facilitating voter registration unless Congress expressly authorizes it. It also states that facilitating voter registration is outside the SBA's mission and bars any Presidential Executive Order from compelling the SBA to do so.