Follow the
money.

Every Seattle resident receives $100 in city-funded vouchers to donate to local campaigns, funded by a property tax levy. Result: the donor pool tripled, with far more low-income and first-time donors. Reduces the structural advantage of the donor class by giving everyone the same stake.

NYC matches small campaign donations 8:1 on the first $250. A $50 donation becomes $450. The effect: candidates raise more from small donors in their actual district, and fewer from bundlers and PAC-connected maxed-out donors outside it. The most donor-diversifying reform proven at scale.

Replace the $200 fine with criminal penalties for willful non-disclosure. Require same-day or next-business-day reporting (not 30-45 days). Extend the ban to the President, Vice President, and federal judges. Multiple versions introduced in the 118th and 119th Congress. None passed.

Current law: 1-year cooling-off for House members, 2 years for Senators — covering only direct lobbying contacts. Proposed: 5 to 7 years, extending to strategic advising, consulting, and communications roles. Closes the loophole where former members provide all the value without technically "lobbying."

Remove corruption prosecution from the politically-appointed DOJ. Create an independent officer, analogous to the Government Accountability Office, with prosecutorial authority and no presidential removal power. Breaks the structural conflict where the President's appointed Attorney General decides whether to prosecute the President's allies.

The US Corporate Transparency Act (2021) required companies to register the real humans behind corporate shells. A series of nationwide federal court injunctions beginning in late 2024 put enforcement on hold through at least early 2026. The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive goes further: full public access. Without it, shell companies remain the primary vehicle for dark money and hidden conflicts.

Every federal court below the Supreme Court operates under a mandatory Code of Conduct. SCOTUS is the sole exception — justices are self-policing. The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act would require financial disclosures, recusal standards, and an enforcement mechanism. Introduced in both chambers; stalled in the Senate.

Tax AI company profits or automation-driven productivity gains, and distribute proceeds as public dividends, worker retraining funds, or a sovereign wealth fund. Rationale: AI breakthroughs are built substantially on publicly funded research (DARPA, NSF, university labs). If those gains concentrate in a handful of companies, the public that funded the research gets nothing back. Sen. Bernie Sanders and others have called for ensuring AI benefits flow to working people, not just shareholders.

When private-sector employers hire former senior government officials into lobbying, advisory, or strategic roles, they pay a public service premium — proposed at 20% of the first-year salary above the official's government salary — into an independent ethics enforcement fund. Today, the revolving door is pure arbitrage: government service = training on the public dime, with the private-sector premium capturing all the value. This makes it cost something.

Require AI-assisted analysis of all federal contracts above $500K for bid quality, price reasonableness, and potential conflicts of interest — with public disclosure of the audit output. Right now, contractor-regulator conflicts are caught only when journalists or IGs investigate. An automated, public audit layer would make conflicts structurally visible before the contract is signed, not after the story breaks.

Citizens United (2010) held that campaign spending is protected speech — meaning Congress cannot cap it without a constitutional amendment. This proposal would amend the Constitution to explicitly allow governments to regulate and limit campaign contributions and expenditures, with stricter limits for corporations than individuals. 23 states have already passed resolutions calling for such an amendment.

Restrict campaign donations — including gifts to super PACs — from companies holding federal contracts above $1 million, as well as their executives and major shareholders. The logic: you should not be able to buy the politician who decides whether you keep a $200M government contract. Smaller individual donations remain permitted. Directly addresses the Trump/Axon dynamic documented in TRUMP-001.

The Constitution prohibits federal officials from receiving benefits from foreign governments (Foreign Emoluments Clause) or profiting from federal positions (Domestic Emoluments Clause). Every lawsuit filed against Trump-era violations was dismissed on procedural grounds — the merits were never adjudicated. Legislation would establish clear enforcement mechanisms, standing for Congress to sue, and financial disclosure requirements to detect violations.

Transfer presidential clemency authority to an independent commission staffed by senior judges and legal experts, removing the president's unilateral power to self-serve through pardons of family, donors, and political allies. The current system has no checks: a president can preemptively pardon co-conspirators, commute sentences of major donors, and pardon family members without any review. The Founders did not anticipate a president using pardon power this way.