Policy

FEI Members Raise Their Political Voice


by FEI Daily Staff

Financial Executives International (FEI) is employing a new, cloud-based grassroots system called VoterVoice that enables our members to contact elected officials in Congress and to track the voting records of those members and the progress of key legislation in real time.

The VoterVoice database links members to their Congressional districts and states allowing FEI to target members of key Congressional Committees when they are voting on important legislation with letters from their constituents.

There are several tools that VoterVoice provides such as messaging FEI members or members of Congress, creating and managing petitions, and conducting surveys. VoterVoice also makes it is easier to follow legislation by automating FEI’s Congressional Scorecard which follows elected officials and their votes on bills identified as important by our Advocacy Committees. There is also the Bill Tracker where FEI members can follow the legislative progress of specific bills.

FEI will also use VoterVoice to strengthen grassroots connections by setting up in-district meetings between Chapters and their members of Congress or Senators.

Utilizing VoterVoice data, FEI is able to run reports to assess District composition. For example, FEI has developed reports on how many of its members are in each Congressional district, in order to show our Representatives the extent of their FEI constituents.

  • From these initial set of reports we have determined that: The two states with the highest number of FEI constituents  are Texas (with 1,396) and California (with 1,278).
  • The five largest Congressional districts (by FEI membership) are: Texas 3rd district with 196 members, Minnesota 3rd district with 186 members, Texas 32nd district with 173 members, Texas 24th district with 170 members, and California 18th district with 162 members.
  • Only the state of Montana and  22  Congressional districts (out of 435) have no FEI members at all.
FEI ‘constituents” are heavily present in the districts that comprise key Congressional Committees as well:
  • There are 1,326 FEI members in the districts of House Ways and Means Committee members, who oversee all tax matters in Congress.
  • 1,405 FEI members reside in the districts of House Financial Services Committee members, who are responsible for Dodd-Frank, the PCAOB, and most accounting and auditing issues.
  • On the Senate side, 5,305 FEI members have Senate Finance Committee members as their Senators.
  • Finally, 4,097 FEI members have Senators who sit on the Banking Committee.
Which is to say, with the help of VoterVoice, FEI members can better coordinate their messaging to Congress, while enhancing their ability to monitor the accountability of their elected officials.
Jordan Butcher is an intern with Financial Executives International’s Government Affairs office.