NFIB

Across the country, small-business owners teamed up with small-business-friendly candidates, lending their time, effort, places of business and financial support, hopeful that the voice of small business would be heard on Election Day. And when the votes were tallied, small business came out on top.

NFIB member June Lennon was active in the South Carolina races, urging people to realize the importance of Small-Business Health Plans (or AHPs).

NFIB members Janis Herschkowitz and Brian Landon teamed up several years ago and have been working hard for small business ever since. During the election season, both NFIB/Pennsylvania Leadership Council members rallied small-business owners across the state by holding weekly conference calls to get the small-business vote out and find volunteers for campaign events.

And the stories keep going. It’s no wonder NFIB President and CEO Jack Faris said, “Main Street is on the move.” NFIB members realized all that was at stake during this election – health care, tax, litigation and regulatory reform, and job growth – and they took matters into their own hands.

NFIB’s Save America’s Free Enterprise Trust Political Action Committee and NFIB members worked hard during this election cycle, reaching an incredible level of small-business political participation. Their accomplishments were remarkable, including:

• More than $9 million raised for the 2004 election cycle, a record
• More than $1 million in direct contributions to federal and state candidates
• Nearly 7 million voter contacts to member and non-member small-business owners – including mailings, brochures, faxes, e-mails and phone calls
• 270 endorsements in federal and gubernatorial races across the nation
• Dozens of endorsement media events and small-business rallies with members at local small businesses with candidates in key races
• Side-by-side issues comparison mailer for the presidential race sent to all members
• Inaugurated organization-wide push for early voting and absentee voting, including 400,000 early-voting postcards
• More than 1.1 million issue voter-education advocacy mailings to small-business voters in 24 key U.S. Senate and U.S. House races across the country, including mailing of scorecards comparing candidates on key small-business issues and GOTV postcards
• 130,000 NFIB campaign volunteer-recruitment contacts across the country, including thousands for a small number of key Senate and House races
• Launched an enhanced online political resource, NFIB.com/politics, to further energize, inform and educate voters and NFIB members on endorsements, campaign activities and important political news from around the country
• Created an online voter resource that enabled thousands of new pro-small-business voters to register to vote, request an absentee ballot and locate their local polling place
• Initiated the Political Action Team program to designate, maximize and target the political activism of NFIB members
• Distributed more than 750,000 copies of “How Congress Voted,” which tracks the votes of elected officials on key small-business issues

But the fight for small business isn’t over yet. With 90 percent of NFIB-endorsed candidates elected to office, now is the best time to become informed on the key issues and let your new lawmakers know what they can do to help small business in 2005.