Campaign Finance &
Political Corruption

87% of Americans support campaign finance disclosure requirements across party lines. The only people who benefit from anonymity are those whose spending would not survive scrutiny. This pillar closes every known avenue for secret political money.

• Mandatory disclosure of all political spending over $200 — no exceptions
• Close the 501(c)(4) loophole: any organization spending over $10,000 on political activity must disclose all donors who gave $200 or more
• Ban shell company spending: no political expenditure may be made by any entity that does not disclose its ultimate human beneficial owners — no more layered nonprofit structures obscuring the original source
• Real-time 24-hour disclosure for all contributions over $1,000 within 30 days of an election
• Full traceability required with treble damages for willful evasion — hiding money is penalized three times as heavily as the amount hidden
• Regulate cryptocurrency political contributions: all crypto donations subject to identical disclosure rules as cash — no anonymous wallets, no blockchain obfuscation

The NYC and Seattle models prove that public financing works — and that it changes who runs, who wins, and who gets represented. The federal version scales these proven mechanisms nationally at a cost of roughly $3.50 per taxpayer per year.

• 8:1 small-dollar matching for contributions of $200 and under (NYC model): a $50 donation becomes a $450 investment in your preferred candidate — making every small donor competitive with wealthy bundlers
• $100 Democracy Vouchers per registered voter (Seattle model): every American adult receives $100 in vouchers redeemable for any participating federal candidate
• Participating candidates must agree to: no donations over $500, no corporate or PAC money, and mandatory participation in at least two public debates
• Cost: approximately $475 million per year — roughly $3.50 per taxpayer — compared to the $9,000–$16,200 annual corruption tax households currently pay

NYC's matching program transformed the city council from 27% to 61% women. Seattle's Democracy Vouchers doubled Black political participation and enrolled 48,071 participants at $13 per property per year. This is the investment required to make every voter a meaningful political donor, not just the 1.05% who currently drive 78.45% of all contributions.

You cannot fix the FEC. You abolish it. The structural deadlock is not a malfunction — it is a feature deliberately designed by legislators who prefer impunity. The solution is replacement.

• Abolish the Federal Election Commission entirely
• Replace with a 5-member Federal Election Integrity Commission — odd number eliminates structural deadlock by design
• No more than two commissioners from any political party — ending the partisan veto structure
• Commissioners appointed through an independent judicial selection process, not by partisan congressional leaders — removing the self-interest from appointments
• Subpoena power with penalties up to $100,000 or 300% of the violation, whichever is greater
• Whistleblower rewards of 15–30% of penalties collected — creating a financial incentive to report violations

Full Mandatory Duty to Act Standard: 30-day investigation trigger upon credible complaint; inaction defaults to action at 30 days; 180-day disposition deadline; no-deadlock rule (majority vote sufficient); mandamus jurisdiction for courts to compel FEIC action; individual commissioner accountability for willful inaction; annual public report on all complaints and dispositions.

866 former members of Congress were registered as lobbyists as of 2025. The average salary increase from congressional staff to lobbying is 1,452%. 49% of financial regulators adjusted enforcement decisions to benefit future private employers. The revolving door is not how you get expertise into government — it is how you get capture.

• 10-year cooling-off period for senior federal officials before lobbying their former agency — extended from the current 1–2 year window that has proven ineffective
• Lifetime ban on foreign lobbying for any former federal official — no exceptions, no waivers
• Criminal penalties for violations — not civil fines that can be priced in as a cost of doing business
• Anti-capture provisions: no industry executive may lead the agency regulating their industry within 10 years of employment there — ending the Boeing model of regulatory capture
• Post-regulatory 5-year ban on joining regulated entities for senior regulators — the cooling-off works both directions
• Shadow lobbying registration required for all "strategic advisors," "consultants," and "government affairs" professionals who communicate with federal officials — closing the informal influence loophole
• Full pay disclosure for all registered lobbyists — transparency on who is being paid how much to say what

The current STOCK Act penalty for late disclosure is $200. Clarence Thomas received $4.2 million in undisclosed gifts. Members of Congress trade on inside information with no meaningful consequence. The Supreme Court has no binding ethics code. This pillar installs one for Congress and extends it to the Court.

• Independent Ethics Office with full investigative authority and Mandatory Duty to Act Standard (30-day trigger, 180-day disposition) — replacing the current self-policing structure
• Stock trading ban with real enforcement: all members of Congress must either divest individual stock holdings or place them in a qualified blind trust within 180 days of taking office; violation means forfeiture of all profits plus a 3× fine
• Real-time financial disclosure: all trades disclosed within 48 hours, not the current 45-day window that allows acting on information before disclosure
• SCOTUS binding ethics code: Congress has constitutional authority to impose binding ethics rules on the Supreme Court — the era of $4.2 million in undisclosed gifts with no consequence ends
• Tax return transparency: 10 most recent returns required for all federal candidates — voters deserve to know who is asking for their votes and their money
• Mandatory candidate disclosure of all significant business relationships and conflicts of interest

Regulatory capture is the mechanism through which the corruption tax is collected. The Boeing model — where the FAA allowed Boeing to certify its own aircraft safety — produced two crashes and 346 deaths. This pillar ends industry self-certification and installs structural independence across the regulatory system.

• Ban self-certification in safety-critical industries: no regulated entity may certify its own products or processes to federal safety standards — the agency responsible for safety must be the one that verifies it
• Advisory committee reform: all federal advisory committees must have a majority of public interest representatives — ending the practice of regulated industries staffing the bodies that advise their regulators
• Inspector General independence with Mandatory Duty to Act: 30-day investigation trigger upon credible complaint, inaction defaults to referral to DOJ, IGs cannot be fired without Senate approval — ending retaliatory dismissals
• Whistleblower superprotections: treble damages for retaliation against whistleblowers, rewards of 15–30% of penalties collected from cases brought to light, and full identity protection for anonymous reports

The Foreign Agents Registration Act exists to ensure Americans know when foreign governments are attempting to influence U.S. policy. The GAO has documented that DOJ rarely prosecutes FARA violations despite widespread noncompliance. The LDA loophole — which allows most foreign-funded lobbyists to register under the weaker Lobbying Disclosure Act — guts the law's core purpose.

• Close the LDA loophole: any lobbyist who contacts a federal official on behalf of a foreign principal must register under FARA — not the weaker LDA standard that most foreign-funded actors exploit
• Lifetime foreign lobbying ban for former senior federal officials — the current two-year cooling-off period is entirely inadequate for the scale of relationships being monetized
• Dedicated DOJ FARA Unit with Mandatory Duty to Act: 100+ enforcement actions per year target; current FARA enforcement is near-zero despite widespread noncompliance documented by the GAO
• Ban and require disclosure of foreign government funding for think tanks and policy organizations that testify before Congress or seek to influence federal policy
• Enhanced disclosure requirements for organizations with foreign-interest missions that engage in domestic political activity