Op-ed by Corey Rosen @ TheHill.com, May 14

Sens. Kirsten Gillbrand (D-N.Y.) and James Risch (R-Idaho) are about as blue state liberal and red state conservative opposites as they can be. But they are the prime sponsors of a bill, The Main Street Employee Ownership Act, that is based on nothing less than the notion that we should be rethinking capitalism in a way that makes more workers owners. On May 8, the House passed the bill on a voice vote, and its prospects are good in the Senate. The bill would direct the Small Business Administration to strengthen its loan program and outreach efforts for companies with Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and worker cooperatives. In itself, the bill is a small but important step. But it represents a larger concept that there are ways in this seemingly hopelessly divided landscape to take on major issues in a way we can all agree on.

Perhaps the biggest issue in the recent election was that while the economy may be working well for many people, it is not working well at all for many others. Finding common ground on ways to address this gap has been wrenchingly difficult [....]

Corey Rosen ([email protected]) is the founder and senior staff member of the National Center for Employee Ownership (www.nceo.org), a nonprofit membership, information, and research organization. The NCEO is not a lobbying organization.