Equal Opportunity for All Investors Act of 2025
Floor Speech
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Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Hill and Ranking Member Waters for their support. I also thank my co-lead on this bill, Congressman Cleo Fields, for all of his work.
The Equal Opportunity for All Investors Act would expand the accredited investor definition to include individuals that are certified through an exam written by the SEC and administered by FINRA.
Accredited investors are individuals that are allowed to participate in investment opportunities that are not generally available to the broader public, like private offerings.
Most current pathways to becoming an accredited investor are based on your balance sheet, your wealth, and your income. This bill changes and opens up a brand-new pathway allowing for investors' knowledge to be the determining factor in whether they are able to become an accredited investor.
In my view, wealth alone is not a particularly strong judge of whether someone should be an accredited investor or not. A better one is whether someone has the knowledge to accurately weigh the benefits and risks of private offerings.
In 2020, the SEC started allowing professional investors with credentials like a Series 65 or a Series 7 to become accredited investors. This was a very helpful step forward, but licensing requirements for brokers and investment advisers go beyond what is needed to properly weigh the risks of private offerings for an individual's personal finances.
Following the principle that merit, not just wealth, should guide who can become an accredited investor, an exam specifically written to determine the sophistication of investors is a natural next step.
The examination created by this bill is meant to strike the right balance between rigorously testing for sophistication and not being set to such a difficult standard that even an intelligent investor could not pass it.
This bill is a commonsense, bipartisan product that will expand opportunity in our capital markets. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
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