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The key Democratic and Republican sponsors of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) believed that preemption was essential for all types of benefit plans.
For more than 25 years, liberal and conservative jurists have recognized that Congress' intent to promote uniform plan administration necessitated a broad preemption clause.
Organized labor and business interest also strongly supported ERISA preemption so as to permit uniform administration of pension, health, and other benefit plans.
"We feel the Federal laws you pass should definitely supersede any State laws. We are getting an influx of State legislators considering State laws along various and sundry lines and we will have a real donnybrook if we don't get that squared away."
Preston C. Bassett, Vice President and Actuary, Towers, Perrin, Forster & Crosby, Inc., Welfare and Pension Plan Legislation: Hearings on H.R. 2 and H.R. 462 Before the General Subcomm. on Labor of the H. Comm. on Education and Labor, 93d Cong. 315 (1973)
"[T]he emergence of a comprehensive and pervasive Federal interest and the interests of uniformity with respect to interstate plans required—but for certain exceptions—the displacement of State action in the field of private employee benefit programs."
Sen. Jacob K. Javits, R–N.Y. (Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare (93d Congress)), 120 Cong. Rec. S15,737, S15,751 (daily ed. Aug. 22, 1974)
"Finally I wish to make note of what is to many the crowning achievement of this legislation, the reservation to Federal authority the sole power to regulate the field of employee benefit plans. With the preemption of the field, we round out the protection afforded participants by eliminating the threat of conflicting and inconsistent State and local regulation."
Rep. John H. Dent, D–Pa., (Chairman of the General Subcommittee on Labor of the House Committee on Education and Labor (93d Congress)), 120 Cong. Rec. H8696, H8701 (daily ed. Aug. 20, 1974).
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