Those signing letters asking the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration to delay changing the definition include four top-ranking Republicans, who are either the chairmen or the ranking members of key House and Senate committee. Four members of the Missouri House delegation, two Republicans and two Democrats, sent one letter. Eight House Democratic members also sent a letter.

The DOL proposal seeks to update a fiduciary definition that was developed in 1975. Critics of the existing definition say it is so complicated that it excludes some advisors who clearly have violated obligations to act in the client’s best interest.

Other critics say the proposed revision could turn ethical, law-abiding advisors into accidental fiduciaries by creating fiduciary relationships in instances in which there is no written contract establishing an advisor as a fiduciary; and in which the advisor does not appear to be engaging in activities that traditionally would have made an advisor a fiduciary.