Recently, President Donald J. Trump signed a sweeping executive order titled Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans—a direct response to the growing crisis of politicized financial discrimination. The order prohibits federal regulators from promoting policies that allow banks to deny services based on political or religious beliefs, and it instructs agencies like the Small Business Administration to reinstate clients who were wrongfully debanked. It also calls for investigations, fines, and consent decrees against institutions that engaged in these practices, and mandates a review of supervisory data for religious discrimination cases to be referred to the Attorney General.
This executive action is more than symbolic. It’s a formal recognition that debanking—once dismissed as anecdotal—is now a systemic threat to civil liberties and economic participation. The SBA followed up with a directive to over 5,000 lenders, warning that failure to comply would result in loss of good standing and punitive measures. But here’s the question: Will red states that have spoken out against debanking actually align their proxy voting with their public commitments?
Over the past year, attorneys general, treasurers, auditors, and members of Congress from conservative states have issued strong statements condemning the debanking of groups like Ambassador Sam Brownback’s National Committee for Religious Freedom and Indigenous Advance Ministries. These cases—where banking services were denied based on religious affiliation or political orientation—have galvanized public concern.
Yet when it comes to shareholder proposals designed to counter these abuses, the votes tell a different story.
Working with groups like Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), we’ve helped others file proposals at major financial institutions calling for transparency and accountability around debanking. These proposals are legally sound, sufficiently well-constructed to withstand legal challenges at the SEC by some of the largest law firms in America and sufficiently persuasive that in most cases the companies voluntarily made changes to the policies. We’ve also supported efforts by leaders like Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ, Chairman of the Oklahoma TSET Fund, to challenge these practices through shareholder engagement.
Despite this, the proposals consistently receive low vote counts.
Why? Because red state pensions and sovereign wealth funds have voted against them.
We’ve conducted a preliminary analysis of proxy voting records from public pension and other funds in states that have publicly condemned debanking. Among those that disclose their votes, the vast majority have sided with the banks and against concerned shareholders—even in cases directly inspired by the debanking of Sam Brownback and Indigenous Advance.
This disconnect between rhetoric and reality is not new. We’ve seen anti-ESG press conferences followed by pro-ESG voting. Anti-DEI op-eds followed by pro-DEI proxy support. Now, we’re seeing anti-debanking statements followed by votes that enable it.
Our team is working to close that gap. We’re engaging with state officials, providing data on how the money in their funds is being weaponized against them by unaligned asset managers and proxy advisory services, and then we help them align proxy votes with their public commitments. We’re also helping public officials go farther and place their own proposals on the ballot and give speeches before the board of directors and other shareholders fighting against politicized debanking.
President Trump’s executive order has set a clear federal standard. The question now is whether red states will follow through—take back control of their votes and bring them in line with their state’s public statements.
We can help. We’ve done it many times before.