Main Street Employee Ownership Act of 2018
Latest action. Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Main Street Employee Ownership Act of 2018
This bill amends the Small Business Act to expand the authority of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to guarantee loans for qualified employee trusts of a small business to purchase the stock of that business. Specifically, the bill allows the guaranteed loan to also cover transactions costs associated with purchasing the stock. In addition, it allows loans to a small business to be guaranteed if the loan proceeds will: (1) be used to provide loans to a qualified employee trust of the small business to purchase the business's stock; and (2) result in the trust owning at least 51% of the business's stock. The SBA must guarantee loans to cooperatives in which employees are eligible for membership for such stock purchases.
The SBA shall: (1) provide outreach and educational materials to licensed small business investment companies to increase investment in transitions to employee-owned businesses, and (2) establish a Small Business Employee Ownership and Cooperative Promotion Program to offer technical assistance and training on the transition to employee ownership through cooperatives and qualified employee trusts.
The Administrator of the SBA shall coordinate an interagency working group on employee-owned businesses.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Reported to House with amendment(s)" stage on April 24, 2018. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on May 9, 2018: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 115th Congress (2017-18), 442 of the 11,421 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.9 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
NYDIA VELAZQUEZ (D-NY) introduced it on March 8, 2018. No cosponsors are recorded.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on March 8, 2018, 3108 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3046 days ago, on May 9, 2018.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 115th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2019 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers