What Is the Broker Action Coalition? The Grassroots Voice for Independent Mortgage Brokers and Homebuyers
What Is the Broker Action Coalition? The Grassroots Voice for Independent Mortgage Brokers and Homebuyers
Short answer: The Broker Action Coalition — BAC — is the grassroots advocacy organization representing independent mortgage brokers and their supporters in national policy. (You may hear it called the "broker action committee" — the organization's actual name is the Broker Action Coalition.) It exists to make sure local, independent brokers have a voice in the policymaking process, to level the playing field between independent brokers and retail banks, and to fight for homebuyer rights — including, in its own words, the needs of veterans, minorities, and underserved communities. Its signature win: leading the multi-year campaign that banned abusive trigger leads nationwide, effective March 5, 2026. I am Douglas Wilkerson, an independent mortgage broker in Jacksonville Beach — and Freeman Douglas is part of the BAC.
What the Broker Action Coalition is
The BAC was established in 2022 by Katie Sweeney, then CEO of the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME), as AIME's grassroots advocacy network — a way to connect practicing mortgage brokers directly with their legislators. The BAC PAC, its political action committee, launched the same year to fund bipartisan public policy work that benefits independent brokers and their clients.
The network grew so fast that it needed full-time leadership of its own. On March 31, 2024, Sweeney stepped down as chairman and CEO of AIME to lead the BAC full-time, and the BAC continued as a standalone advocacy organization, working side by side with AIME. Today it is led by its President and Co-Founder Brendan McKay — a practicing broker who serves as Chief Advocacy Officer — and CEO Jamie Cavanaugh, a 30-year mortgage industry veteran named to the role in August 2026, building on the foundation laid by longtime Executive Director Rachel Clark.
BAC's own description of its mission is worth quoting in full: it is "the grassroots advocacy channel uniting mortgage brokers and their supporters to fight for broker and homebuyer rights nationwide," working "to ensure independent mortgage brokers have a voice in the policymaking process, support inclusive homebuying policy change, and advocate for the needs of Veterans, minorities, underserved communities, and homebuyers across the country."
What the BAC actually does
Advocacy is a verb at the BAC. Its work runs on four rails:
- Fly-ins. BAC's annual Advocacy in Action fly-in brings independent brokers to Capitol Hill in person — hundreds of mortgage professionals walking into congressional offices to make the broker case face to face.
- Grassroots campaigns. When a bill needs pressure, BAC mobilizes its network: its campaigns have generated more than 25,000 letters and messages to Congress, 250+ meetings with lawmakers, and 150+ bill cosponsors secured on its top priority.
- A state network. State Captains and a State Government Affairs Advocacy Council carry the fight into state legislatures, where a great deal of mortgage policy is actually made — BAC's early state work included disabled veteran property tax exemption bills, which passed in California, Virginia, and Utah, among other states.
- Regulatory advocacy and the BAC PAC. BAC meets with regulators — including the Federal Housing Finance Agency — on the rules that shape broker costs, and funds the whole operation through individual broker contributions and the BAC PAC, so the channel's voice does not depend on anyone else's budget.
Independent brokers serve borrowers face to face. The BAC makes sure Washington hears them.
The proof: the trigger lead ban
If you applied for a mortgage before 2026, you probably lived this. The moment your credit was pulled, the credit bureaus sold your information — your name, contact details, and credit score range — to other lenders and telemarketers as a "trigger lead," without your consent. The result was a flood of unsolicited, often deceptive calls, texts, and emails, sometimes impersonating your own lender, hitting borrowers at the exact moment they were most vulnerable. Veterans applying for VA loans got hammered like everyone else.
Ending that practice was the first promise the BAC made its earliest supporters, and it delivered. The Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act was signed into law on September 5, 2025, and the trigger lead ban went into effect on March 5, 2026. The law stops the sale of homebuyer data at the source — the credit bureaus — while preserving narrow exceptions for your current servicer, your current originator, and institutions you already bank with, and it lets consumers opt in if they actually want competing offers.
That did not happen by accident. It happened because brokers showed up for years: two Advocacy in Action fly-ins, hundreds of congressional meetings, tens of thousands of constituent messages. It is the clearest proof in the industry that a grassroots network of local brokers can change federal law for every borrower in America.
What the BAC is fighting now
With trigger leads handled, BAC has broadened its agenda to the next set of issues that land directly in borrowers' closing costs:
- Credit report cost inflation. The price of pulling a credit report has climbed steeply, and every dollar of it lands in a homebuyer's closing costs. BAC is elevating the issue and pushing practical solutions that reduce barriers and protect borrower choice.
- Loan officer compensation fairness. The federal loan originator compensation rule shapes what brokers can and cannot do for borrowers — including whether they can cut their own compensation to win a deal or help a client. BAC connects the practitioners who understand LO Comp on the ground with the policymakers rewriting it.
- The TPO surcharge and regulatory balance. Broker-channel loans have faced an FHFA third-party origination surcharge that retail channels do not bear the same way. BAC continues to press for a regulatory balance that protects consumers without rigging the field against independent brokers.
Credit report cost inflation is next on BAC's agenda — a cost that lands in every borrower's closing costs.
How the BAC connects to VAREP
I also participate in VAREP — the Veterans Association of Real Estate Professionals, and I am helping launch its brand-new Jacksonville Chapter. VAREP and the Broker Action Coalition are separate, independent organizations; there is no merger or formal partnership between them, and neither speaks for the other.
The connection is the work — and the people who do both. VAREP is a nonprofit, HUD-approved housing counseling organization advancing veteran and active-duty homeownership through education, counseling, and advocacy. The BAC is a grassroots policy network advancing the independent broker channel and borrower-first rules — with a mission statement that explicitly includes advocating for veterans. The trigger lead ban is where those missions visibly overlap: it protected every mortgage shopper in America, including the veteran borrowers VAREP exists to serve.
In my practice, the two memberships do different jobs. VAREP keeps me trained, certified, and organized around Jacksonville's military community. The BAC puts my channel in the rooms in Washington and Tallahassee where the rules governing those veterans' loans get written. A broker who only originates is reacting to policy. A broker who also advocates — and who trains to serve veterans properly — is working on the problem from both ends. You can read the full picture in my companion post on what VAREP is and why Jacksonville is getting a chapter.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Broker Action Coalition?
The Broker Action Coalition (BAC) is the grassroots advocacy organization representing independent mortgage brokers and their supporters in national and state policy. Founded in 2022, it works to level the playing field between independent mortgage brokers and retail banks, support inclusive homebuying policy change, and advocate for veterans, minorities, underserved communities, and homebuyers nationwide.
Is the BAC the same as AIME?
No. The BAC began in 2022 as the grassroots advocacy network of the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME), built by AIME's then-CEO Katie Sweeney. It grew into a standalone advocacy organization — Sweeney left the AIME CEO role on March 31, 2024 to lead the BAC full-time — and the two organizations continue to work side by side for the broker community.
What is a trigger lead, and is it really banned?
A trigger lead was the sale of your personal data by the credit bureaus — triggered the moment a lender pulled your credit for a mortgage application — to other lenders and telemarketers, without your consent. The Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act, signed September 5, 2025, banned the practice effective March 5, 2026, with narrow exceptions for your existing servicer, originator, and banking relationships. The flood of spam calls after a mortgage application has stopped.
What does the BAC work on now?
Its current federal and state agenda includes credit report cost inflation, loan officer compensation fairness, the FHFA's TPO surcharge on brokered loans, and broader regulatory balance between the broker and retail channels — plus state-level work through its State Captain network.
Why does a mortgage broker's advocacy matter to me as a homebuyer?
Because the rules brokers fight over land in your loan. Trigger leads spammed you. Credit report costs sit in your closing costs. Compensation rules decide whether your broker is even allowed to sharpen their price for you. An independent broker's business model only works when borrowers win — which is why the broker channel's advocacy agenda and the homebuyer's interest are usually the same agenda.
How are the Broker Action Coalition and VAREP connected?
They are independent organizations with no formal partnership. The connection is mission overlap and shared people: BAC's own mission includes advocating for veterans, VAREP exists to advance veteran homeownership, and some of us participate in both — I do, through Freeman Douglas, including helping launch VAREP's new Jacksonville Chapter. Read the companion post: What Is VAREP?
Here is the question I want to hear from you: when you applied for your last mortgage, how many spam calls and texts did you get in the first 48 hours? Drop your answer in the comments — that flood is exactly what this organization exists to stop.
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Douglas Wilkerson — NMLS #1680719
Direct: (904) 517-4049 | Office: (904) 906-8869
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1548 the Greens Way, Ste. 4, Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250
Freeman Douglas Corporation is a DBA of Edge Home Finance. This is not a promise to lend — all credit decisions are subject to approval. Douglas Wilkerson, NMLS #1680719 | Edge Home Finance, NMLS #891464. Verify licensing at nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Equal Housing Opportunity.
