Columbus, OH – The Buckeye Institute helped to secure a significant nationwide victory for small business owners and the workers they employ. After more than a year, the Biden administration finally abandoned its appeal of an ill-advised rule that would have destroyed the franchise business model in America—one of the country’s most successful small business ownership models.

“This win is a tremendous victory for small business owners and their employees across Ohio and the country,” said Rea S. Hederman Jr., executive director of the Economic Research Center and vice president of policy at The Buckeye Institute.

In 2022, the Biden administration revived a rule that, when it was in place under the Obama administration, cost small business owners $33.3 billion per year and resulted in 376,000 lost job opportunities. The Buckeye Institute knew that, if adopted again, this devastating rule would have a crushing economic impact on small-business employers nationwide—and particularly in Ohio. The Buckeye Institute outlined the consequences of this revived rule in a powerful letter to the National Labor Relations Board.

While bureaucratic rule-making may sometimes seem tedious and dull, its impacts on the lives of ordinary working Americans cannot be overstated, and the tireless efforts of The Buckeye Institute to monitor and engage in the rule-making process were critical to protecting small business owners’ rights, jobs, and the U.S. economy.

Buckeye’s analysis and submitted comments were instrumental in the ruling by the U.S. District Court of Texas, which said the Biden administration’s rule was “contrary to law.” The court’s ruling also told the Biden administration that its attempts to rescind that rule were “arbitrary and capricious.”

Hederman continued, “As a result of The Buckeye Institute’s relentless work in this esoteric area of policymaking, the Biden administration dropped its appeal of the Texas court ruling, and America’s franchise business model is no longer under threat.”

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