Common-Sense Bills Congress Could Pass Tomorrow
Not every fix takes a constitutional amendment. Some are ordinary bills Congress could pass now—if the will were there. We're drafting these the same way we draft the amendments: around their safeguards, honest about the trade-offs, and ready to hand to any willing sponsor in either party.
Five are ready to read and act on right now, with more in drafting. Each gets its own page, plain-language explainer, and downloadable text—just like the amendments—as we publish them.
Members of Congress, senior officials—and, in our version, the President and Vice President—shouldn't be trading individual stocks in the very companies they regulate, fund, and can move with a single decision. Our bill moves them into blind trusts or diversified funds, with real penalties and forced give-back of any illicit profits. The President is exempt from the main conflict-of-interest law today—exactly the gap we close.
A President now fills roughly 4,000 political jobs—more than 1,200 needing Senate confirmation, far more than any peer democracy. That patronage layer rewards loyalty over expertise, drags confirmations out for months, and wipes out the government's institutional memory every four years. Our bill caps political appointees at an essential core (about 2,000, the level a bipartisan commission recommended) and lets vetted career professionals run the rest—while keeping the President firmly in charge of the leadership that sets direction. Fewer, better appointees means faster confirmations, steadier agencies, and a lower temperature in Washington.
Too many go to Washington to serve the public and end up serving themselves—cashing out to lobby the colleagues they served with days earlier. Today a former Representative waits just one year, a Senator two, and the most senior officials skip the rules entirely by staying under the 20% threshold that triggers registration. Our bill closes the door in every direction: a lifetime lobbying ban for former Members of Congress, long cooling-off periods for senior staff and officials, an end to shadow lobbying, and a bar on the reverse and foreign doors—while never touching anyone's right to petition their government for free.
In 2013, a one-year No Budget, No Pay law passed with big bipartisan votes, and both chambers beat their budget deadline. Then it expired. This realistic first step makes it permanent: miss the April 15 budget deadline, and that chamber's pay goes into escrow until it votes on a budget. During any shutdown, Members' pay is held until it ends, the same terms furloughed federal workers get. It's a first step, not the full fix, which is our No More Shutdowns amendment.
The biggest bills are often voted on within hours of release, from 5,593 pages in 2020 to 4,155 in 2022 to 1,012 in 2024, and the House's own 72-hour rule can be waived by a simple majority. Building on Sen. Rand Paul's long-running Read the Bills Act, our bill makes it real in both chambers. No final vote until the text has been public for 72 hours, with a redline of every change to current law. Leadership's last-minute changes restart the clock, while ordinary floor amendments stay workable. A waiver takes two-thirds and still leaves 48 hours. It's the statutory cousin of our Single-Subject Rule.
These five are just the start. Also on our drafting table: honest-accounting rules to kill budget gimmicks, an earmark transparency database, a binding Supreme Court ethics code and a sunset on open-ended national emergencies. We'll publish each one on its own as it's ready—the same way we've done with the amendments.