ASA Supports Protecting Americans’ Retirement Savings from Politics Act

WASHINGTON – The American Securities Association (ASA) today sent a letter to House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill and Ranking Member Maxine Waters expressing strong support for H.R. 8286, the Protecting Americans' Retirement Savings from Politics Act, ahead of the Committee's markup.

“The retirement savings of millions of teachers, firefighters, and hard-working Americans depends on a proxy system that serves their financial interests – not the political preferences of foreign-owned proxy advisors,” said ASA President and CEO Chris Iacovella. "Rep. Zach Nunn's bill subjects proxy advisors to the same basic standards of accuracy, transparency, and accountability that every other participant in the capital markets must meet.”

“Today we have a system in which two firms function as an unelected, unaccountable arbiters of American corporate governance – tilting the field toward political outcomes rather than the financial interests of American investors. They have exploited a regulatory blind spot to build an extraordinarily profitable duopoly, profiting from conflicts of interest that would disqualify any other market participant, and using their stranglehold over institutional voting to impose political agendas on American companies and their shareholders. H.R. 8286 closes that blind spot,” Iacovella wrote in the letter.

To read ASA’s full letter to the Committee, click here.

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The American Securities Association (ASA) represents the retail and institutional capital markets interests of regional financial services firms who provide Main Street businesses with access to capital and advise hardworking Americans how to create and preserve wealth. ASA’s mission is to promote trust and confidence among investors, facilitate capital formation, and support efficient and competitively balanced capital markets. This mission advances financial independence, stimulates job creation, and increases prosperity. The ASA has a geographically diverse membership of almost one hundred members that spans the Heartland, Southwest, Southeast, Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States.