Issue in Brief
 Prepared by the National Women’s Business Council February 2003 

Legislative Priorities Among Key Women’s and 

Small Business Organizations 

There are numerous organizations and associations, both membership and non-membership, that advocate on behalf of women-owned and all small 

businesses. This issue brief summarizes the current legislative priorities of the nation’s leading women’s business and small business advocacy groups. 

The issues are listed in descending order of agreement of priority among the organizations. Additionally, this brief makes note of other issues of 

ongoing importance to the National Women’s Business Council. 

Health Care 

Legislative priorities related to health care that have been 

identified by business organizations include: 

•	 Ensuring access to affordable health coverage 

through association health plans, medical savings 

accounts, health care tax credits, and modifying 

current taxation on the self-employed’s health care 

premiums; 

•	 Ensuring reproductive choice and access to 

reproductive health services and education; 

•	 Ensuring funds for research into and protection 

for women’s health care needs; 

•	 Encouraging the development of a national health 

care plan recognizing the special health care needs 

of women; 

•	 Shifting Medicare to a Catastrophic Insurance 

Plan; and 

•	 Stopping the trend towards increased regulation, 

mandates, and employer liability. 

Organizations naming health care issues as a priority 

include: 

•	 Business and Professional Women/USA 

(BPW/USA); 

•	 National Association for the Self-Employed 

(NASE); 

•	 National Federation of Independent Business 

(NFIB); 

•	 Small Business Survival Committee (SBSC); 

•	 U.S. Chamber of Commerce; 

•	 Women Entrepreneurs, Inc. (WE Inc.); and 

•	 Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP). 

The National Women’s Business Council has issued a 

more in-depth brief on the topic of health care. 

Economic Equity and Tax Relief 

Legislative issues that are the focus of major business 

associations and organizations include: 

•	 Ensuring pay equity, equal educational and 

economic opportunities at all stages of life; 

•	 Promoting affordable, quality dependent care to 

help ensure economic self-sufficiency for women; 

•	 Increasing the deduction for business meals and 

equipment; 

•	 Accelerated income-tax relief and increased 

expensing limits; 

•	 Permanent repeal of the death-tax; 

•	 Cutting capital gains taxes; 

•	 Expensing business investment; 

•	 Dynamic scoring of tax measures; 

•	 Dividend tax reform; 

•	 Super-majority requirement for tax increases; 

•	 Stopping efforts at international tax 

harmonization; 

•	 Overhauling the tax code; and 

•	 Expanding Individual Retirement Accounts and 

401(k) accounts. 

Organizations naming economic equity and tax relief issues 

as a priority include: 

•	 BPW/USA; 

•	 NASE; 

•	 NFIB; 

•	 SBSC; 

•	 U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and 

•	 WIPP. 

409 3rd Street, SW, Suite 210  Washington, DC 20024  202-205-3850 (p)  202-205-6825 (f)  www.nwbc.gov 
Legislative Priorities Among Key Women’s and Small Business Organizations, pg. 2 

Technology and Telecommunications 

Key initiatives include: 

•	 Policies and programs to increase access to the 

Internet within minority and underserved 

communities; 

•	 Policies that create programs to increase access to 

e-commerce for minority businesses; 

•	 Policies and programs that create high-tech 

training opportunities for minority entrepreneurs; 

•	 Prohibition against new Internet and sales taxes; 

•	 Eliminating per telephone line charges; 

•	 Telecommunications deregulation; 

•	 Stopping Tauzin-Dingell (related to local 

telephone companies and open access 

requirements with broadband infrastructure); 

•	 Acceleration of broadband use by maximizing 

competition among providers and promoting 

public awareness of broadband’s capabilities; and 

•	 Addressing workforce solutions. 

Key supporters of technology and telecommunications 

legislation include: 

•	 SBSC; 

•	 U.S. Chamber of Commerce; 

•	 U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; and 

•	 WE Inc. 

Global Markets 

Legislative priorities related to global markets and 

international trade include: 

•	 Lowering U.S. barriers to trade in order to 

increase competition, improve quality, and lower 

prices for all consumers; and 

•	 Entering into free trade agreements (FTAs) with 

other nations, to open up new markets and 

opportunities for U.S. entrepreneurs. 

Organizations naming global market issues as a priority 

include: 

•	 SBSC; 

•	 U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and 

•	 WE Inc. 

Legal Reform 

Key initiatives related to legal reform and litigation 

management include: 

•	 Reforming medical malpractice laws, capping noneconomic damages at $250,000 and abolishing 

joint and severe liability, ensuring that parties in a 

lawsuit will only be liable for damages in direct 

proportion to their percentage of responsibility; 

•	 Implementing a sliding scale for attorneys’ 

contingency fees; 

•	 Reforming the collateral source rule; 

•	 Capping punitive damages in almost all civil cases 

for businesses with fewer than 25 employees; 

•	 Work to enact a comprehensive and rational 

solution to the burgeoning asbestos-related 

liability crisis; and 

•	 Comprehensive federal reform of the class action 

system. 

Organizations naming legal reform issues as a priority 

include: 

•	 NFIB; 

•	 SBSC; and 

•	 U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

Access to Capital 

Priorities related to access to capital include: 

•	 Investing in federal funds to stimulate business 

and job growth in depressed areas; 

•	 Implementation and expansion of federal 

programs that provide venture capital funds for 

minority businesses; 

•	 Licensing federal programs created to increase 

opportunities for economic development within 

low-income communities; 

•	 Addressing the tax system and how it hinders 

capital formation and diverts scarce resources into 

unproductive activity; and 

•	 Conducting capital market outreach and educating 

the venture capital community about the 

extraordinary success of women entrepreneurs, 

thus increasing their potential and capability to 

secure growth capital. 

Key supporters of access to capital issues include: 

•	 U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; and 

•	 WE Inc. 

Government Regulation 

Legislative priorities concerning government regulation 

and enforcement include: 

•	 Promoting common-sense enforcement and 

compliance-assistance programs at federal 

agencies, offering a more cooperative, rather than 

confrontational, approach; 

•	 Regulator overhaul, requiring Congress to review 

all regulations on a regular basis and eliminating 

those deemed irrelevant, outdated, or too costly; 

•	 Congressional oversight to ensure that all 

government agencies are complying with the Small 
Legislative Priorities Among Key Women’s and Small Business Organizations, pg. 3 

Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act 

(SBREFA); 

•	 Basing new regulations on sound science, 

including cost-benefit and risk-assessment 

analyses; 

•	 Changing antitrust laws so that government 

bureaucrats and lawyers stop putting their own 

judgment above that of millions of consumers; 

and 

•	 Rejecting increases in the minimum wage. 

Organizations naming government regulation as a priority 

include: 

•	 NFIB; and 

•	 SBSC. 

Energy Policy 

Key initiatives related to energy policy include: 

•	 Eliminating price controls at all levels of 

government, on all types of energy, and at all 

stages of production; 

•	 Lifting restrictions on energy exploration and 

production on federal lands; 

•	 Reducing regulatory burdens at all levels of 

government for building or expanding petroleum 

refineries and pipelines, electricity generation 

plants of all kinds and transmission systems, coalbased generation, nuclear power, hydropower 

plants, and heat and power projects; 

•	 All efforts to regulate CO2 emissions and/or 

revisit the Kyoto Protocol must be avoided; 

•	 Federal gasoline and diesel taxes should be 

eliminated, and highway and road projects funded 

at the state and local levels; 

•	 Eliminating all forms of corporate welfare for 

energy-related industries; 

•	 Eliminating government conservation subsidies 

and programs; 

•	 Eliminating the Department of Energy, with any 

defense-related programs shifted to the 

Department of Defense; 

•	 Privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority, other 

regional power marketing authorities, and some 

1,800 municipally owned utilities across the 

nation; 

•	 Not increasing corporate average fuel economy 

(CAFE) standards; and 

•	 The need for a comprehensive national energy 

policy. 

Key supporters of energy policy issues include: 

•	 SBSC; and 

•	 U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

Other Issues of Ongoing Importance to 

the National Women’s Business 

Council 

•	 Procurement: 

o	 Anti-bundling initiative 

o	 Promoting access to federal procurement 

opportunities 

• Access to Training and Technical Assistance 

o	 Working with the Office of Women’s 

Business Ownership on the women’s business 

center program; 

o	 Review and analysis of mentoring programs in 

the business environment 

The National Women’s Business Council is a bi-partisan Federal 

government council created to serve as an independent source 

of advice and counsel to the President, Congress, and the U.S. 

Small Business Administration on economic issues of 

importance to women business owners. Members of the 

Council are prominent women business owners and leaders of 

women’s business organizations. 

For more information about the Council, its mission and 

activities, contact: National Women’s Business Council, 409 3rd 

Street, SW, Suite 210, Washington, DC 20024; phone: 202-205-

3850; fax: 202-205-6825; e-mail: nwbc@sba.gov, web site: 

http://www.nwbc.gov.